


Ceramic

by bearception



Category: Actor RPF, Captain America (Movies) RPF, Marvel Cinematic Universe RPF
Genre: Aftercare, Alternate Universe - BDSM, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angsty Schmoop, But food is amazing, Caretaking, Communication would solve so much of this, Dom Chris, Dom/sub, Forgetful about food, Hand Feeding, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sub Sebastian, Subdrop, allusions to dub/con - vague but exist
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:59:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7334110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearception/pseuds/bearception
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thing is…Seb is so good. He’s so flipping good. Chris tries to maintain his boundaries – but it’s not like he’s the only one who notices. And after a hard day of filming, Sebastian will smile calmly whenever anyone checks in on him. </p>
<p>He doesn’t even complain after the fucking wall hadn’t been padded properly (Chris’d been furious and had stepped out for minute, snapped open a can of Coke and let it fizz in his mouth instead of the words he’d wanted to say – things like come here, Seb and who the fuck let this happen and we’re taking the rest of the day off and I’m feeding this gorgeous sub juice in bed).</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/gifts).



> Content warnings: it’s a Dom/sub AU but mostly focused on caretaking. Some mentions of weight loss in the context of neglect. Can’t think of anything else right now. 
> 
> This will likely be two or three chapters. The second chapter is halfway written and should be posted eventually :)
> 
> I've been reading in this fandom for a while, and particularly have fallen in love with luninosity's recreations of these characters. I've been reading in fandom in general for....for at least a decade now, and this is my love letter to the internet that has given me so much.

The thing is…Seb is so good. He’s so flipping good. Chris tries to maintain his boundaries – but it’s not like he’s the only one who notices. After a hard day of filming, Sebastian will smile calmly whenever anyone checks in on him.

He doesn’t even complain after the fucking wall hadn’t been padded properly (Chris’d been furious and had stepped out for minute, snapped open a can of Coke and let it fizz in his mouth instead of the words he’d wanted to say – things like _come here, Seb_ and _who the fuck let this happen_ and _we’re taking the rest of the day off and I’m feeding this gorgeous sub juice in bed_ ).

  
Chris isn’t old-fashioned. He doesn’t think he is. He joins with those All Rights protests and has mentioned more than once his pride in Scott – in everything Scott stands for. He doesn’t think a sub is any less than a Dom, and his Ma may’ve pulled one of his ears off of his head by now if he did. But there’s something about Sebastian that shouts _good_ to him.

 

When he steps back in the Russo brothers are commenting to each other “Someone must be happy at home” with a sly smile to Sebastian. Because yeah, any Dom would be proud of Seb. (Chris sure is.) But Sebastian’s smile now looks worse than the one after being thrown into the unpadded wall. Polite still, but tight.

 

Chris needs this reminder, that Sebastian has a Dom waiting for him, telling him to be good, and that it’s not Chris. He is not Sebastian’s Dom. So he claps Sebastian on the shoulder – but lightly – and asks “Alright, man?” while trying to not sound too distant but not too close and this is why he needs so many breaks, this is wreaking havoc on his already anxious mind.

 

Chris knows he’s not mistaken that Sebastian leans in to his hand– it’s noticeable by the way the light hits those pale eyes at a different slant – when he hums a sweet “Yeah, thanks for asking.”

 

* * *

 

 

Chris has kept it together for 2.5 films so he thinks he should be able to keep a reign on this, whatever the heck _this_ is, for another .5. Optimistically. They’re in Germany now and the weather is grey and he can’t help but notice how this affects Sebastian. It’s nothing hugely noticeable. He thinks Scarlet may have given Sebastian a second glance the other day. But Chris watches the way Sebastian cups both hands around a cup of coffee. Waits a little longer before speaking up. Takes another extra moment or two before putting on the mantle of Bucky on set, a little longer to shed it.

 

Chris can’t do much. Anthony has already given him shit for the way he laughs around Sebastian. He likes laughing around Sebastian; Sebastian makes him laugh with those sly remarks and side-eyed smiles. The problem’s not the laugh itself, it’s that Chris can’t help but reach out when he’s laughing. What he _wants_ to do is cup Sebastian’s shoulder, slide a hand up that neck, thread his fingers at the nape of the sub’s hair and rub a little with the rhythm of his guffaws. He doesn’t think about this in too much detail, alright? There’s been less opportunity for this desire lately because Sebastian’s been a little more reticent with those not-quite-shy smart-ass comments. Which is fine, because Chris can keep his hands to himself. Also, it sucks.

 

But he does what he can. Namely, he buys Sebastian one of those ceramic travel mugs from Starbucks and pretends it’s so that Sebastian can start collecting them in each city (seriously what the fuck who does that can he be more embarrassing? Sebastian had smiled quizzically at him, clearly pleased by the gift once Chris had forced it into his hands, but confused. “Each city has one? I’ll…keep an eye out?”). He thinks that might be better than paper or Styrofoam – better at keeping those hands warm when filled with coffee. And Sebastian does use it.

 

He corners Sebastian a few times when he’s clearly dressed inappropriately for the weather, as they head further into winter. He doesn’t know _who -the-fuck_ Dom lets their sub out underdressed, especially this sub with his handsome chin and sweet smile and soft brow. He thinks maybe Sebastian’s been absent minded, the way he gets when he’s tired or low, but still! The mystery Dom should know that Seb does this, gets like this, should be mailing him mittens. Chris would.  

 

That’s why second or third time he finds Seb - off-set in a grey long-sleeved t-shirt, tucking his hands into his pockets and pretending that his new bulk is keeping him from getting cold - Chris asks him to help him pick out lunch from the catering table. Chris keeps him occupied on the short walk across the services corner, asks “Have you seen anything good on the hotel pay per view?”

 

Sebastian starts with a dirty joke but then begins to earnestly describe a German film involving coca cola and the Berlin Wall. Chris sheds his jacket, worn dark denim, and asks Seb to hold it while he fills up a plate. It’s hard enough not to fill another plate for Sebastian, but that’s line-crossing and Chris knows it. That’s what a sub’s Dom does for them. Not what Chris is to Seb.

 

So when he’s finished making his plate , he turns to Sebastian and says as casually as he can “You just put it on, yeah? I’m over-heated anyway and I’ll only catch the sleeve in mustard while I eat. I’ll get it from you later?”

 

And then because he knows Sebastian is about to protest or Chris is about to grab Sebastian and kiss that little wrinkle between his brows any second now, he walks off with his plate and looks over his shoulder just once to see Sebastian tucking himself into the jacket.

 

He refuses it when Sebastian tries to give it back. He wishes he had stuck around to hear more about that movie, hear Sebastian speak.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris didn’t always hate Sebastian’s Dom. Well, in fact, he didn’t even think Sebastian had one for a while. At least not during the first movie, but then they’d barely known each other and Chris was still learning that Sebastian was slow to warm up because that was _Sebastian_ and not because he secretly hated Chris along with everyone else. 

 

And he didn’t first start hating Sebastian’s Dom in grey Germany. It was slow and it was sometime during Winter Soldier.

 

They were wrapping up the movie and Chris and Sebastian were comfortable now together. Sebastian had pulled him aside one morning – fingertips at the back of Chris’ elbow to get his attention – and asked if he thought it was _too much_ to start leaving feathers in Anthony’s trailer.

 

Everyone’d picked up the habit of poking at Mackie, calling him bird-brained or, once when Chris’d been a little drunk, bird-dicked. It’s retaliatory - Anthony pokes and pokes at all of them until you learn to punch him in the shoulder and love him back. And Mackie’d poked at Seb most of all.

 

Chris had learned not to feel protective about this, not angry, just…sort of wistfully happy. It was cool between Mackie and Sebastian. Mackie was undiff’d and didn’t really care to get involved in Dom/sub dynamics. And Mackie didn’t do anything mean with Sebastian. Mostly, actually, he teased him into speaking up. Called him Cover Girl for the black eye makeup and the hair, but tugged on the hair a little after. Chris can tell that Sebastian likes that, that Sebastian feels a little more part of the group when Anthony calls him out for ordering the sweetest drink at the bar or asks him if he has a scrunchie that Scarlet can borrow.

 

Funnily, that makes Chris hate the Dom. Not the scrunchie or Mackie being undiff’d because _once again Chris was not fucking diffaphobic or subaphobic or whatever-the-fuck_. But the look on Sebastian’s face when he said something sly in retort to Anthony about sweet things and the whole group laughed at the bar. The look when Scarlet told him _hey nice scene_ after wrapping up. When the makeup artist offered to _help get that all off, yeah? We can use something more moisturizing, you’re getting dry, aren’t you, hon!_  When Chris called Seb _hard-working_ in an interview after, during the press tour, and he could feel Sebastian’s knee jolt against his in the line of fold out chairs.

It’s the way that Sebastian had barely pressed his fingers to Chris’ elbow to get his attention that day on set. How quietly worried he’d looked when he joked about maybe leaving some feathers about? A little more every day? Different places Anthony went?

 

Chris’d laughed at the idea, had put his hand on Seb’s shoulder and moved it up a little like he always did back then, before Anthony gave him shit about it. Said “Holy shit, you’re brilliant, how long do you think it’ll take him to catch on?”

 

Sebastian’d smiled, and Chris always likes that. So that’s not what upset him either. It’s the surprised quality of the smile when Chris’d said “you’re brilliant.”

 

Chris starts thinking _Does this Dom not compliment him enough at home?_ Which is hard to even imagine because Chris is nearly always keeping his mouth closed, even then at 1.75 movies through, from saying things that were not professional but straight-up Dom-speak. From telling Sebastian some mornings _oh fuck you look beautiful when the sun is coming up_ or from staring at Sebastian’s long hands, his coltish legs, his wry mouth.

 

Chris must’ve made a face when thinking this, hand still on Sebastian’s shoulder, because he feels Sebastian’s shoulder tense. Sebastian’s talking now, and Chris makes himself focus and not think about this scumbag Dom.

 

“Maybe, maybe not, though? I don’t want to make any more work for anyone, if someone’d have to clean up the feathers, right? Or if they got worried about avian flu, although that’s old, right..." Sebastian’s retreating already. The kid’s not shy, he’s just, he’s eager to stay out of everyone’s way. This only makes Chris angrier but he doesn’t have a right and he especially shouldn’t when Sebastian’s taking it all wrong.

 

“Nah, kid,” and Chris punctuates this with a rub of his thumb across Sebastian’s acromion because that’s just natural. “I think it’s brilliant – you’re tricky, huh? I can help – grab a feather pillow on the way back home tonight for us to start with?”

“You’re sure?” Sebastian has relaxed a little with the words, with the thumb-rub.

 

(Privately, now, Sebastian is thinking that he’s upset Chris. He’d felt so good earlier when Chris’d called him brilliant, which is pretty fucking stupid because it’s clear Chris meant it casually. Maybe, he’s thinking, Chris saw Sebastian react to the compliment and thinks Seb is reading too far into this? That’s likely. Seb reads too far into everything, with Chris. The way he’ll pat the front of Seb’s chest, or hold his shoulder when he laughs. The wrinkles around his eyes when he’ll confess to Sebastian some prank he pulled on Scott as kids. The things he says when they finish a scene – probably the same _you wrapped that up real nice_ that he gives to anyone else.)

 

“Of course I am, yeah, totally! Sorry - I zoned out a little – still thinking about tomorrow’s fight and whether or not I’m going to hit that timing right.”

 

“I can help?” It’s an almost involuntary response for Sebastian. Every fucking time he sees Chris Evans, the broad smile and broad shoulders, Sebastian thinks _let me be good_.

“I’ll text you tonight if I do, yeah? But let me buy the pillow and you focus on glowering just right through that mask tomorrow. Get your lines straight.”

 

Chris knows why he says this. He’s trying to make fun, to tell himself that he’ll be a friend like Mackie, and not quietly pine after Sebastian for another .25 movie and another press tour and rumor has it a full movie after this and shit. He knows that Anthony could’ve pulled that line off, Anthony’s made fun enough of Sebastian for his lack of lines. Had said “Did they even mail you a script, Stan?” but had also said something about the globe theater, all of Sebastian’s experience, his potential.

 

Something about this statement now seems to undo whatever the earlier “you’re brilliant” had done. Does the opposite of a thumb rub and the opposite of one of the Russo brothers raving about Sebastian’s body language, _just right, you got it, Stan!_ Sebastian’s smiling tightly, laughing along. Chris can tell he’s trying to be good, polite.

 

“Not everyone’s Captain America, though. Not so many righteous speeches for me. Anyways, I don’t think I can pull off blond. Tell me if you want me to help with the blocking but I bet you Samantha or Wasi can go over it with you better than me, they’ll probably be able to help you figure that out, I might just mess you up.”

 

And Sebastian claps his hand once on Chris’s grasp of his shoulder, then walks away.

 

Chris is thinking that Seb’s fingers felt cold. That’s he’s a fucking idiot.

 

* * *

 

 

Here are the reasons why everyone on set, including Chris despite being about it, thinks Sebastian has a Dom at home.

 

1 – Initially, this was an explanation for Sebastian not heading out with them for _drinks, after_. _Drinks, after_ had become a phrase for Chris early on in filming. Something would take too fucking long and Chris would try hard not to be frustrated, or sometimes want to keep the rest of the crew from snapping. So he’d say to someone, occasionally whoever’d been silently assigned blame for the overtime, “this’ll take however long it takes, but let’s get drinks, after?”

 

Chris hadn’t known Sebastian well, then. He’d thought he was beautiful from the get-go. He’d thought he was a fucking genius at Bucky. He did everything about it brilliantly. The frowns and the charm and the surprise and the shaken way he looked when Cap got him off that table, strapped down.

 

But Sebastian never really showed up in those motley groups that went to _drinks, after_. Some crew and some actors and some significant others. He asks Hayley one night why she thinks that is, already 3 beers in and feeling like maybe he should’ve eaten some more bar pretzels first.

 

Hayley frowns. She says “Well I assume whoever is waiting at home for him doesn’t want him to take too long?”

 

Chris drinks more that night.

 

2 – It’s the same point that set this whole fucking thing off. _Sebastian is so good._ It’s not a Dom supremacy thing at all. But everyone knows the signs that a Dom or sub need some time with one or the other. Doms get…tetchy. Chris himself gets a little mother-hen-y. He starts shipping Scott sweaters online. Brings cookies over to his neighbors. Checks his locks three times at night. Absent-mindedly tells friends what to do. It’s embarrassing.

 

Subs act out. The response is natural – the sub wants care and demonstrates behavior that requires care, punishment (although Chris isn’t much for the punishment end of this). But he knows how submissive friends of his get when they’ve gone too long without going down.

 

He’s read about Submissive Deprivation Disorder, the analogous condition to Dominant Anxiety Disorder. Robert has said more than once that he’s pretty sure half of his infamous 20s were caused by sub-dep. Subs’ll act out, and they’ll feel more tired. The energy level end of this varies. Chris’ own mom just needs a nap when his dad is out of town. Some subs, though, have written on it bordering on the bone-deep exhaustion of depression.

 

Sebastian Stan does neither of these things. He’s exhaustingly good. He shows up to everything on time, early. He brings breakfast some mornings for everyone – sandwiches he picked up on his way in because he knows Catering is taking this Sunday off. Sebastian does scenes over and over and never says a word about whoever is throwing the scene off.

 

Chris was walking back to his car one night and found Sebastian _changing the fucking tire_ of his makeup artist’s car, said makeup artist sitting in Sebastian’s car nearby, which was closed and had the heat on, fogging up the windows. He’d felt so fucking odd about it, so pleased but at war with himself, that he’d pretended to not see them and got in his own car, got home and watched TMC until he’d fallen asleep. The next day he buys Sebastian coffee but tells him he was accidentally given an extra.

Chris takes care of himself as he knows best. He volunteers, he buys a dog, he talks to Scott about it. Whatever Hayley had believed in this _drinks, after_ everyone else now knows to be true. Because whoever Sebastian has at home, they’re taking enough care of Sebastian that the man can show up mornings at 6am and stay until midnight and not snap once.

 

Everyone knows how fucking good Sebastian Stan is.

 

* * *

 

 

They’re in Germany again but not for filming, for the tour. It’s a little better because last time it was November and this time it’s late March.

 

Chris’d been happy to see everyone again at the beginning of the tour. Anthony had ruffled his beard and cracked a joke about hermits. Paul had something polite and had slapped Chris on the back. Scarlet blew a raspberry on his cheek, and Chris had really missed her. Robert gave him a good hug, both hands and a kiss on the cheek, but then had snuck off to answer his wife’s phone call. Chris can hear him still, telling her “yeah, honey I got lunch already.” It’s domestic and wonderful.

 

Chris sees Sebastian and feels the way he did in the first few weeks of growing his beard, when he’d see his halfway reflection in the oven door and think _who the fuck is this_. Generally, Chris feels a swoop of happiness when he sees Sebastian. It makes him smile to see him, his thick hair and straight nose and whatever sweet expression he’s pulling off at that moment.

 

Close after that Chris gets a second swoop of _not-mine_. He’s gotten pretty good at timing this so that Sebastian doesn’t look over then and think Chris’ fallen expression is about _him_ which it is but it _isn’t_ and that’s probably half the reason Sebastian’d been so quiet around him for so long.

 

This time, that first swoop is shorter and the second is worse. Sebastian looks tired. They’ve all dropped bulk after the movies. Anthony mostly around the shoulders – he likes talking about a flyer’s body, about keeping it tight. Chris hasn’t had much reason to – he’s taking some time off right now and spends most days reading, working out, not watching videos of certain co-stars online or shamefully reading TMZ in a ghost tab, trying to learn about the Dom he silently hates.

 

Seb’s dropped some bulk. And it’s more than Chris is comfortable with. He looks wiry, not the natural length and pull of his body that Chris’d seen in the first movie. Maybe he looks wrong because Sebastian looks so tired. He looks drawn in a way that Chris is not used to seeing him look in the daylight. Sure, some point past Starbucks being open and before their directors would give up. Beginning of a day, here in Germany? Not so much.

 

Chris watches Anthony greet him, pat a hand on Sebastian’s chest (a move Chris feels slightly bitter about, having disallowed himself from this proprietary gesture). Sebastian makes a wry face and Chris imagines what he’s saying, maybe something about that Olympics movie or about Anthony’s goatee, but Chris’s imagination is cut off when Sebastian sees him.

 

Sebastian smiles. It’s almost unbearably sweet, and Chris is moving towards him before he even thinks about it.

 

They’re hugging. Later Chris’ll wonder – did I start that? Did I force him into it? But at that moment, he feels perfectly natural wrapping one arm around Sebastian’s shoulders, the other around his waist. He’s glad Sebastian can’t see his face because he skims his hands around Sebastian’s rib-cage, around his scapula and feels that second swoop another time.

 

Chris, while keeping everything strictly platonic, has gotten a certain familiarity with the body of Sebastian Stan. Enough training, that last press tour, and a casual LA-NY friendship has kept them this way. Chris is used to the varying breadth of his shoulders – from Bucky to Winter Soldier. The drag of his waist.

 

“What’ve you been up to, kid?” Chris is asking with Sebastian’s face still in his neck. He knows he’s not imagining that Sebastian tuck it there. He can feel the cold tip of his nose, the brush of his eyelashes, a faint hint of stubble on the jaw. He’d like to think that he can feel even the dimple of his chin, the warmth of his breath.

 

Chris doesn’t like the way the knobs of Sebastian’s spine feel under his palm, in as much as he could ever dislike anything about Sebastian’s body.

 

Sebastian takes another long breath. Chris senses his lips move a moment, a hair’s breadth from the naked skin above Chris’s collar. He forces his hands to release when Sebastian moves back.

 

Sebastian is looking down for a moment, a little pink. One hand comes up to rustle his long-but-not-Winter-Soldier-long hair back into place. When he looks up, Chris makes himself not frown and not pull Sebastian back into his body. Tuck the figure to his chest, the face to his neck, make real on his standard private threat to take Sebastian to bed and feed him juice. He’s always wanted to tuck Sebastian into him.

 

“Not much? It’s been, it’s been not as busy and sort of different. You? How’s the family, Boston? Did you see your nephew?”

 

Something about Sebastian comes off…shaky. Chris wants to think that mystery Dom is gone, but knows this is hopeful thinking, thinks Scarlet or Anthony would’ve texted him something about it. All the same, Chris can’t help but turn to stand behind Sebastian, press a shoulder behind his and say “Come get some coffee with me.”

 

Sebastian is moving with him immediately. Chris can tell he’s leaning in; he swears to god the sub is. Sebastian is pressing his hair back into place again when Chris makes eye contact with Anthony, who is frowning a little at them.

 

For a moment, Chris thinks Anthony wants to warn him off his Dom-ish behavior again. But Anthony just looks concerned, nods towards Sebastian, then turns around to catch up with Elizabeth. Whatever Chris noticed, he wasn’t the only one.

 

He keeps talking as he walks them over to the coffee cart, doesn’t allow himself to loop an arm around that waist (thinner than he thought it should be but maybe it’s primal, maybe he’s pulling some Dom anxiety shit and doesn’t know), from grabbing a cold hand. His shoulder behind Sebastian, though, that should be allowed. He gets to appreciate that inch and a little he has over the sub. Feel the warmth of Sebastian, share his own warmth. He’s in over his fucking head.

 

“My nephew is so fucking adorable, Seb. You should come see him. Seriously, you should come visit and meet this kid, he’s stubborn, cute, I think you’d like him. Just the other day I was at my sister’s, reading him a book – one of those Disney movie books because his mom won’t let him see that much TV yet - and you won’t believe what he said.”

 

“What?” Sebastian ghosts, looking sideways at him, looking drawn but a little more grounded now, Chris thinks. They’ve made it to the drinks cart and Chris has put a hand behind Sebastian’s back in the short casual way that’s definitely allowed, moving him to the side to grab sleeves for their cups.

 

He pulls his hand off of Sebastian’s back. Uses both to drop paper cups into sleeves. Reminds himself to _keep it in his pants, Evans._ Looks back at Sebastian and thinks again, with more determination, that he wants to figure out what the fuck is up.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris and Anthony aren’t the only ones to notice. Right off the bat, sure, but they’re the ones who spend the most time with Sebastian, who can hear the difference in his tones the best. The Russo brothers pick up on it two weeks into the tour. Chris is talking to Joe in the hotel lobby when Anthony walks in. Anthony Russo greets both of them, then taps Joe on the shoulder.

 

Joe speaks up, “Oh, there’s something we wanted to ask you?”

 

“Sure,” Chris says, already practiced in quieting the voice in his head which is sure this is a reprimand, that something’s gone wrong.

 

“Everything okay with Stan?”

 

Chris looks between the brothers. They both look mildly concerned – they’re good guys, good directors, they take care of their movie and their people.

 

Anthony is picking up from Joe’s statement, saying “Yeah, we don’t quite know about the last tour, but is something not agreeing with Sebastian this time around? Foreign food? We can talk to our staffers and try to help him out – or is he sick?”

 

Joe jumps in again, “The schedule is grueling and we just want to make sure none of you are getting ground down.”

 

Chris is relieved they’ve noticed too. He doesn’t know why they’re asking him, they all know he’s not Sebastian’s Dom, he’s probably not even Sebastian’s closest friend here, with how much the kid laughs around Anthony Mackie.

 

Sure, they’ve spent long hours together. Sebastian’s talked to him openly while fiddling with the rubber lid of his ceramic travel mug, has confessed that he’s been reading the same three plays over and over for the past month and half the problem is that he can’t get fucking enough of Coriolanus. Chris had something then, about revolution. Sebastian had nodded and had said “yeah, I think maybe I’ve always been obsessed with, maybe frightened of, rebellion.” Chris thought about Romania, then. About what he’s read on Wikipedia, about his own lack of education. They’d kept talking.

 

Now though, in the hotel lobby, Chris thinks he may have not said anything for a few moments too long. Both the Russos are looking at him, and Joe speaks up again.

 

“We’ll keep an eye on him, but let us know what we can do, alright? Shoot us a text, anything. Maybe we’ll send up some room service to him, tonight. Get him eating some fries, some pie. Maybe offer to fly his Dom out.”

 

Chris nods and says a weak “Yeah, room service could help” as the brothers head off.

 

Sebastian had look drawn when Chris had seen him two weeks ago. He doesn’t look any better now, he thinks. Chris can’t pretend it’s a gymnast training body anymore, Sebastian looks on just this side of thin. He’s lost another couple of pounds in the past weeks. He’s still unfailingly polite. Chris hasn’t spent much time with him, but mostly because Sebastian goes back to his room after the interviews, makes his excuses.

 

Chris’d want to pretend that it’s the distance from home, but time shooting out of the country could only prove otherwise. Sebastian’d been more open in their month and a half in Germany than he is now.

 

Chris is worried about him, too.

 

* * *

  

They’re in China now, in some terrible American-ish hotel. Chris hates it when they book some kind of knock-off Best Western for them, as if he and the rest are going to put up their middle fingers if they get fed something other than All-American poptarts for breakfast. 

Chris hasn’t really figured out much of what’s going on with Sebastian. He’s watching Sebastian more, when he can. He’s thinking about loosening up on his rules of _platonic-not-my-sub_ action, maybe a palm behind the neck? A short hand-hold?

 

He can tell he’s not the only one. The Russo brothers have made a cheerful habit of sending up dessert for them after long days, sending it to three or four of them at a time, but Sebastian more frequently than anyone.

 

Anthony has assigned himself to most of Sebastian’s interviews. “The kid looks tired, yeah?” he says to Chris as they scoop scrambled eggs onto plates at the hotel breakfast buffet. Chris sighs sigh. Tries not to look too morosely at his lumps of likely-from-powder scrambled eggs. He thinks of the street vendor on the corner who was making those beautiful crispy-thin egg pancakes yesterday. He's got enough cash for like  _a dozen_ of those at least. 

 

“I figure, he doesn’t really like the aggressive interviews anyways. I’ll go with him, take some of the heat, make him laugh at least once.”

 

“I think that’s great, Anthony,” Chris says, a little too sincerely.

 

Anthony smiles at him in that knowing, worried way of his.

 

Chris hasn’t been able to do anything. He and Sebastian have been close, but never quite comfortable. Chris knows this is his fault, his hot-then-cold, the after-set compliments he could never keep from saying. He has waited for Sebastian at breakfast, and not found him. He’s texted Sebastian for lunch, and gotten a text back, hours too late, saying “I’m sorry, man! Had my phone on silent – next time, hopefully?” An apologetic string of emoji and sometimes a couple of shit emoji, which Sebastian knows makes Chris laugh like a kid.

 

He has smiled at Sebastian every time he has seen him, which is hardly any different from before, but now Sebastian smiles real tightly like he does when the interviewer asks their third or fourth question about acclimating to America, and disappears before Chris can head over there.

 

“Why would he be avoiding me?” he’s asking Anthony before he can even help it. They’re seated now, and Anthony is tearing open tiny packets of half-and-half.

 

“Why avoiding, or why you?”

 

“Both?” Chris pretends to eat more eggs. He thinks he’s going to get three of those yogurt cups on his way up if he can't make it out the lobby for crispy-egg goodness, probably trash this plate. What a waste.

 

“I don’t know, man. Something’s up with him for sure. Maybe something with family, maybe a contract that’s messed up.”

 

“Why me, then?” Chris asks.

 

“Things have always been different for the two of y’all, you can’t tell me otherwise, Boston.”

 

This is what Anthony is good at. Saying the truth, softening it up with the way he dumps half of his tiny creamer cups into Chris’s coffee, calls him Boston.

 

Chris watches half and half swirl into his mug. Sebastian feels different around Chris. Maybe it’s worse, now. Maybe his Dom warned him off of Chris? Maybe Sebastian got tired of Chris, got tired of his attention and his near-desperate desire to be around Sebastian. To be the one Sebastian told about Shakespeare, plotted feather-dropping plots with.

 

* * *

 

 

Chris can’t leave anything alone. He has a few scars on his knees from scabs he kept picking at. His brother puts his phone on silent after they have an argument, because he knows Chris’ll call two more times, text double that, and that freezing him out will drive Chris up the fucking wall.

 

He trades spots with Anthony before the next interview. Anthony shrugs, looking shrewd but saying “whatever you think is best, man, I’m going to go grab a nap.” The interviewer hardly complains at having Chris there.

 

Sebastian looks a little surprised when he walks in. Mostly wan. Chris puts both hands in his pockets and tries not to think too much about the feel of Sebastian’s face in his neck, the fullness of closing both arms around him. About sly humor and ceramic mugs.

 

“Anthony was tired, told him I’d tap in – that alright, Sebastian?” Chris says as he settles himself into the other chair.

 

Sebastian smiles, tight but better from the ones from afar.

 

“Good for you to take the hit” he says, tucking both feet onto the bar of his high chair.

 

“Hardly,” says Chris, “at least I have good company.” He doesn’t hide the way he looks at Sebastian after saying this. Sebastian sighs a little, looks down, smiles.

 

* * *

 

(Something in Sebastian shakes loose. He has been trying very hard, lately, and everything is worse than usual. He went home and his mother and step-father were out of town when he was free, back when he was busy. He has studiously not thought of Chris Evans, of the friendly warm accent, and has instead made himself tea in a Starbucks travel mug from Germany. 

Sebastian wants to believe he can be good enough, good without having to be told to be. But lately everything has been too cold. Chris Evans has been too warm. He already slipped up once, when they greeted each other and Seb had tucked his face into that warm collar like some desperate TV drama sub.

Chris has been nothing but kind, but Sebastian is teaching himself the lesson that won’t get fucking taught. That he needs to keep to himself, he can’t keep hanging off of every warm smile. He shouldn’t feel this way when Chris smiles. He leaves when his tasks end, he goes back to his room, he turns up the heat if he has the option, he gets in bed and he reads until his eyes are dry or sometimes just curls up. Once, he put in headphones and listened to an interview of Chris and held his own hands, twisted his legs together, and the next day he’d kept a perimeter around the Dom, unable to even glance at him.

(Another time, he ran himself a bath, got in it and pretended Chris ran it for him, that Chris was waiting in his room and would touch his hair, maybe call him _good_ once or twice before Sebastian fell asleep.)

It’s no one’s fault that Sebastian has become this fucking desperate, this fucking pathetic. It’s not fair for Sebastian to let anyone else have to suffer with him, to make anyone put up with this. But this morning he woke up and the room was cold. Kneeling didn’t help at all.

He put on Chris’ denim when he got ready but took it off before he left because it’s too big, because he could only handle so much embarrassment, otherwise he would just tuck his face into Chris’ neck again and let the larger man not say anything, make him put up with it. Feel his hand on his back, oh god. Just a single broad palm, that would be enough, he swore. (He knew he was too greedy).

And he’s exhausted already sitting there, he’s on edge, they’ve set up too many lights for this interview. The flight the day before had been unendingly long, turbulent. Internally, he’s not counting the days since he went down because that would be _sad_ and a sign that something was wrong with him, that he needed help, which he doesn’t. (It’s past triple digits, and it’s too fucking high if you don’t count going down on his own).

Then Chris comes in instead of Anthony. Anthony who provides shoring touch and doesn’t ask too many questions and doesn’t make Sebastian feel like saying stupid things about his childhood, about favorite books. For a second, Sebastian thinks he can do it. Then Chris looks at him, says something so fucking sweet but probably completely normal if Sebastian wasn’t so fucking _desperate_ , and Sebastian gives up.

It’s been a while since he’s given up. He gives himself until the end of this interview. Nothing insane, he won’t crawl into that warm lap and call Chris _Sir_. He already avoids using the Dom’s name at all because every time he ends a sentence and wants to use an address, he gets half-way through _sir_ before he can correct himself. He can’t imagine Chris’ look at horror of that. Sebastian, addressing him as if he were his _Dom_.)

 

* * *

  

Chris thinks of picking scabs again, and of the initial pleasure of it.

 

Throughout the interview, Sebastian looks at him before answering. Smiles. Looks so fucking sweet that Chris imagines for a moment asking everyone to leave, beckoning the sub over. Having him kneel and rest his head on Chris’ knee. Sit on his lap, pet that hair, skim a hand over Seb’s chest over and over.

 

When Chris looks over again, these thoughts loaded in his head, Sebastian flushes. Chris watches him press his palms into his own knees, bite his lip, and thinks suddenly _what the fuck_.

 

Thankfully they’re filming breast-bone up. Chris is barely keeping himself from standing up and patting down the sub, physically checking him, his health. They stumble through another question or two and Sebastian barely speaks.

 

When they finish, lower lights, and the interviewer waves herself out, Chris watches Sebastian release a long breath, grind his palms into his knees. He’s about to actually fucking say something. He thinks he could put his hand over one of Sebastian’s from here, it’s almost imperative that he does. He swears it looks like Sebastian is trying to take himself down, to self-soothe or some shit, pressing both knees and closing his eyes for a few seconds.

 

A staffer runs in. She’s harried, and tells Chris that something’s up with his visa for the next flight, could he please come explain his travel history to the official on the phone?

 

Chris looks over and Sebastian is gone. Fuck.

 

* * *

  

Chris has proof now. Something is fucking wrong with Sebastian. He saw the sub smile at him, saw him push down on his own knees. Wherever the fuck this Dom of his is, he’s not here. Chris is not going to press his own presence on him, but he’s going to ask Sebastian what’s up. He’s going to make sure he gets some care, maybe Anthony can come cuddle him, or Robert come sub-pile with him. He’s sure they would, the moment they were asked.

 

So that’s why he’s knocking at Sebastian’s door that night. He got whatever was wrong with his visa (some cultural misunderstanding about middle names) sorted out. He breathed fast in the bathroom, worried he was being crazy, worried he was being pushy. But the Russo brothers asked _him_ what was wrong with Sebastian.  

 

No noise after the first knock, and none after the second set either. Chris is about to call Sebastian when he hears some sound from inside.

 

“Yes?” breathes out a voice that Chris can barely recognize as Seb. It’s his, sure, the characteristic pitch of his. But something about it is wrecked in a way that Chris has never been allowed to hear from Sebastian. He sounds more like the Winter Soldier than the clever, reserved man that Chris knows.

 

“Sebastian? I wanted to check on you –“

 

“I” – there’s a choked noise inside, and Chris hears him move, trip. “I’m fine, thank you, s – Chris!”

 

“Did you just fall?”

 

Silence.

 

“Sebastian, I’m getting pretty fucking worried. If you can, let me in, let me see you?”

 

More movement, and Chris can tell that Sebastian is on the other side of the door. He wants to knock the door down, but knows he’s being stupidly primal, thick-skulled in the way his brother and sister make fun of. And he doesn’t want to now that he realizes he might hurt Sebastian in the process.

 

“Sebastian?”

 

“I’m, thank you for checking in, thank you – I’m okay, you don’t have to worry. I can, I can see you tomorrow morning? Afternoon? We’ll be heading out again and then the day after we fly…flying and –“

 

Chris can hear him breathe. He knows, well he doesn’t know but he suspects strongly enough that Sebastian fucking hates flying. And whatever is wrong with Sebastian right now, the thought of flying is clearly not helping.

 

“Hey, Seb. Don’t worry about that – just – let me…I’m sure you’re doing okay. Yeah? I don’t doubt that you’re doing your best in there. I’m just worried, you know me, anxious, and want to see ya? Do you think that’s okay? I can send Anthony or Robert, Scarlet if you’d rather? Any of them would come – it’d be fine – you don’t have to see me.”

 

“No!” Chris holds his breath. No? No to Chris being there? No to the others?

 

“Not…don’t bother them. I can – I can see you all tomorrow at the airport and I’ll be better, then?”

 

Chris swears he can hear Sebastian crying at this point. It’s not loud, it just sounds like his breath isn’t as easy as before.

 

“Sebastian, I’m just real worried. Let me see you and I’ll leave you alone, okay? Or tell me you’ll call your Dom – talk to them?” Chris knows he should’ve suggested this earlier but he tries as hard as fucking possible to not think of Sebastian’s Dom when he’s around Sebastian because then he gets bitte rand short-tempered.

 

But something about that word raises a sob in Sebastian, this time unmistakable past the hollow hotel door.

 

Chris pressed both palms to the door. He can feel his own sweat. “Sebastian. You don’t have to call them. But let me get someone here to check in with you, or let me in, but you don’t have to let me in. It doesn’t have to be me. But I just want to make sure you’re okay, sub.”

 

It’s a slip. But it does something, because Chris hears the door lock slide open, hears movement.

 

“Sebastian? Is that permission for me to come in? Is that why you opened the door, kid?”

 

There’s no response, but Chris hears a thud, and feels his heart thud in response. He opens the door.

 

“Sebastian?” He calls from the open door. “I’m coming in. Please say something, or make some noise if you don’t want me here, okay? Please.”

 

No noise now, definitely.

 

* * *

 

  

It’s alright if Chris’s heart is breaking. He’s sure it’s okay because he’s gone this far knowing Sebastian’s not his sub, hasn’t he?

  
Sebastian’s kneeling at the side of the bed, back to the door. Chris can tell his shoulders are hunched. There’s a soft noise that makes him think the sub’s crying, hence, heartbreak.

 

“I’m coming further in, Seb. If you don’t want me to, do anything. Say anything. Or put your hand on the floor next to you. I won’t, okay? I’ll respect that” _I’ll respect you,_ Chris doesn’t say. _Please let me take care of you._

 

He walks slowly, softly. He doesn’t want to startle Sebastian. He stands at the foot of the bed, right angle to Sebastian. Crouches. Looks at Sebastian’s face.

 

It no longer alright if Chris’ heart is breaking because now it hurts so fucking bad. Seb’s looking down, but Chris can see a sliver of the pale eyes. He’s kneeling, all properly with feet under bum, hands on lap in a way that Chris can swear he saw in the back of his own eyelids at night sometimes.

 

But now Chris doesn’t like it at all. Sebastian looks…defeated. In a way that never-ending hours of filming, 15 hour flights, rudely intrusive interviewers, and huge crowds haven’t touched the sub. Chris wants to strangle whatever did this to Sebastian. If it’s himself, he still will. He’ll fucking leave, send in Anthony and Robert or whoever Sebastian could possibly want.

 

“Sebastian?” Chris asks, barely even conscious of it.

 

Sebastian hunches over further.

“I’m sorry, please, I can, I can get out of your way, I’m sorry” Sebastian whispers, and Chris can fucking _see_ the tears move down Sebastian’s face.

 

A few drop on Sebastian’s hands. Chris itches to reach over and swipe them away, he knows how gross tears can feel, he wants to put his hands on either side of Sebastian’s tired face and kiss his forehead, the wet eyes, the cold nose. If Sebastian wanted it, his lips.

 

“What’re you sorry for, Seb? What’s wrong?” _Who should I call here, what do you want me to do, who should I fucking wreck for doing this to you_?

 

“You don’t have to be here, sir,” Sebastian says to his slightly damp hands. They’re knotted together.

 

Chris lets the “sir” pass by unaddressed for now. More importantly, Sebastian wants him to leave.

“Do you want me to leave, Seb? If you do, I will. I swear, do you not want me here right now?”

 

“No!” The word tears its way out of Sebastian’s mouth. He looks over at Chris, turns his head a little. Still pointed mostly down, but now chin pressed to his own shoulder. Chris looks at that chin, that shoulder. Looks at the old grey t-shirt. Sebastian’s still wearing the black jeans he was at the interview. No socks.

 

Chris lowers himself from the crouch to his knees. If Seb doesn’t want him to leave, he sure as fuck won’t leave. But something about this agitates Seb more, the man scoots to face Chris more, grips his hands tighter, looks up a little this time.

 

“Please don’t, sir!” Sebastian seems to notice he’s looking at Chris’ face (Chris notices Sebastian’s. Wants to grind into the ground whatever caused the sharpness of those cheekbones, to cradle that precious sub to him, feed him juice in bed). Sebastian looks down.

 

“I’m not leaving, honey. I’m not for as long as you don’t want me to.”

 

“Thank you but….I’m sorry, sir. Please don’t –“ Sebastian presses down over his knees, bending over slightly, baring the back of his neck. He’s trying to press his own knees further into the hotel carpet, to get lower.

 

“Tell me what to stop, kid, and I will do my best I really will. Tell me what it is, huh?” Chris’ voice has dropped into the tone of Doms, and Chris can’t help it. This sub needs help. _Sebastian_ needs his help.

 

“Kneeling, sir.”

 

“Yeah, you are, Sebastian. Do you want to get up?”

 

“No, sir! You are. You’re…”

 

“I’m kneeling, sweetheart? That’s what is bothering you?” Chris can’t help but lean in, he’s barely holding himself from petting Sebastian’s hair, thumbing that sweet chin up so that he can look at the dear face.

 

“You’re not supposed to.”

  
Sebastian sounds…anxious. Worse than he did with cold fingers at Chris’ elbow, asking about pranks. Worse than in any interview, any video online.

 

“If you don’t want me to, I’ll get up, Sebastian. I’ll sit here on this bed edge. But I need you to get up too, to sit up here with me, alright? I want to know –“ Chris realizes this may be too much at once. He knows enough, knows that anyone this distraught, never mind Sebastian and his low-mood withdrawal, never mind a sub, can’t handle stacked commands.

 

“Come up here, sub.” It’s the second time and it’s so fucking easy to call him that. It’s not that he’s kneeling, it’s that Chris has wanted to take care of him from the beginning of time. Even phonetically, Seb, sub, _his_.

 

Chris gets up slowly, and sits on the corner of the bed. He waits for Sebastian, who is sliding his legs out from under him, pressing his hands into the floor and clambering up. Until he’s not, one shaking shoulder dipping and his knee collapsing, nearly falling back to the floor.

 

Chris has his hands beneath Sebastian’s shoulders. He hasn’t touched him so far, but he wasn’t going to let him fall. He feels a hitched sob in Sebastian’s chest. Sebastian raises a hand, as if to balance himself by holding Chris’ forearms, but lowers it and tries to straighten his feet out under himself.

 

Chris can only be expected to have so much restraint. He helps Sebastian turn, hands still under his shoulders, one foot instructively at the instep of Sebastian’s. Lowers him to the bed’s edge. Withdraws hands. Almost crouches again, then remembers Sebastian’s distraught at having Chris on the floor. Likely no better now that Sebastian is sitting on the bed.

 

He seats himself close enough to Sebastian that the bed dips a little. Chris feels so desperate to help him that he thinks it must be seeping out of his skin.

 

“Sebastian, what’s wrong?”

 

Sebastian twists his hands.

 

“Do you want me to have someone else come here, instead of me, Seb? That’d be fine. We can do that.”

 

“No. I’m sorry. You don’t have to, you can…”

 

“You have to be fucking kidding yourself if you think I’m going to leave right now, Stan. Unless you want me to. I want to know what’s wrong.”

 

“Nothing should be!”

 

Sebastian looks up suddenly, and Chris watches his shoulders bob a little with the quick movement, a hand dart back as if to brace for a fall.

 

Chris reviews the facts: Sebastian wants him here. He hasn’t said otherwise. He doesn’t want Chris to leave. Sebastian is clearly unwell. Chris saw him press his palms into his knees at the interview. Chris saw him cry. Chris saw him fall or almost fall twice, wait, three times if he counts earlier before Seb unlocked the door. Sebastian is upset. He is unwell. Chris cares for him almost unbearably.

 

He reaches out and puts a hand out, palm up. “I’m going to touch you, but I don’t want to if you don’t want me to – I mean, fuck – what a mess of a sentence – if you don’t want me to touch, to put my –“

  
Sebastian interrupts him before Chris can spiral out much more, interrupts his anxious messy conversation as well as he always has, before, with a small kick of his chair or a curious question. Except this time, he slips his hand into Chris’.

 

The hand is cold and feels somehow delicate in Chris’, the long piano-fingers and the fact that it belongs to Sebastian. It’s Sebastian’s. Chris’ fingers have curled around the hand long before he can think to, because it is Sebastian.

 

“I’m going to put my other hand -“ Chris feels painful narrating this, but until he fucking knows what is wrong, how he could exacerbate this, he’s not going to - 

 

But Sebastian simply tightens his hand around Chris’ and nods. Chris can hear his quick, wet breaths. He lets out a big one of his own.

 

Tucks a hand around Sebastian’s shoulder, that spot that has always been _theirs_ in his private possessive mind, and slides it down. Past his scapula, across his spine (and Chris knows the sub has fucking lost weight and he’s going crazy with it), past the faint ridges of his ribcage, cupping there. He feels the tremors.

 

“Sweetheart?” he asks, and then Sebastian collapses into him.

 

It can’t be called anything else, it’s the amplified version of their greeting hug. Sebastian has pressed his face into Chris’ neck, one hand clamped around Chris’, the other curled between them. Chris tightens his arm to herald Sebastian in. Pulls one knee on the bed to turn towards him, starts making Dom-ish noises like second nature, hums and low breaths.

 

“Hey, hey, hey. Sebastian.” Sebastian is undeniably crying now. Chris can feel his mouth moving against his neck as the sub’s hand clasps spastically at Chris’ broader one. Chris can nearly circle his fingers around.

 

“I’m sorry, sir. Chris, I’m so sorry. You don’t have to stay here. You don’t have to – just because I’m – I’m so fucking sorry”

 

The moment Chris has decoded what Sebastian is crying into his neck ( _his_ neck!), he takes the hand in his grasp and places it instructively on his chest, wraps that arm around Sebastian’s waist (spends only half the time he previously has thinking about the sub _losing this much fucking weight between filming and now never mind the tour and oh is Chris going to feed him, he’s going to sit this sub on his lap and give him juice, honeyed things, if Sebastian lets him that is_ ) and _pulls_. 

Sebastian is practically on his lap now, and if Chris had felt any tension he would let go. But Sebastian is melting into him, truly melting, head moving down so that his face is pressing into Chris’ sternum, near where Chris set his hand.

Chris takes the momentum and turns himself a little to lean back, wrong direction, across the width of the bed. He pulls Sebastian with him, making those humming noises, keeping him tucked into the breadth of him as much as possible. Keeps the sub’s face in his neck, where Sebastian has put it twice now, where Chris feels like he can protect him.

 

Sebastian cries. He’s shaking, shivering more like, and Chris works to keep him as warm as possible. He hooks Sebastian’s bare feet, cold like his hands, between his shins. Uses the hand that was around his waist to tuck both of Sebastian’s arms between them, smoothing the precious hands out over his chest when he sees them curl a little on themselves, and then wrapping his own arm back around.

 

They’re so close that the crook of his elbow is at Sebastian’s side, his hand reaches the opposite hip, prominent.  With his other arm, the one partially pinned under Sebastian’s shoulder, he pets Sebastian’s hair. He’s wanted to for so long, and right now he wants to establish some kind of soothing pattern. He can feel the hitches of Sebastian’s breaths. He pets once, heavily, and then breathes out past Sebastian’s ear as he lifts his hand to start again at the crest of the sub’s head. Pets again, breathing in. Pulls his hand away, breathes out.

 

It takes no more than three or four strokes for Sebastian to align his breathing with Chris, and Chris aches with how _good_ Sebastian is (which has been _the problem from the fucking start_ ). He doesn’t even have to _say_ anything and Sebastian is following instructions.

 

It takes a little longer than that - Chris humming now on breaths out, still stroking absently at that smooth hipbone with the other hand - for Sebastian’s tears to slow.

 

Chris’ collar is wet, and he can feel Sebastian’s tremors with each measured exhale.

 

“Sebastian?”

 

He feels Sebastian nod into his neck, that mouth open and the start of a few breaths –

 

“You don’t have to talk right now if you don’t want to, sweetheart.” Chris holds himself from kissing Sebastian anywhere close by – an ear, his forehead – and instead punctuates this with another stroke through the sub’s hair.

 

“You have your hands on my chest, right? So yes is one tap, no is no tap, alright?”

 

Chris feels the fingers of both hands lift and press again into his chest.

 

“Good job, kid, good job.” Sebastian keens, a small, sweet noise of surprise. Chris reminds himself of the no kissing rule, but pull Sebastian even closer, if that’s possible.

 

“You’re okay with me being here, Sebastian?”

 

One tap. A dry mouth presses closer into his neck, a stubborn nose digs in, and less-cold-toes wiggle between his shins. Chris huffs his chest with a weak laugh, because as far as he understands it, Sebastian has just said _yes, you idiot_.

 

“Alright, alright. I wanted to double check. Now – Sebastian – do you” Chris steels himself. He can do this, for Sebastian. “Do you want to contact your Dom?”

 

Sebastian, tucked in as far as he is, calming a little, works back up to a full sob. His fingers tighten in Chris’ shirt, but Chris doesn’t know if that’s a tap. He asks that.

 

Sebastian flattens his hands, and shakes his head no, face pressing even further where it’s hidden under Chris’ jaw.

 

Chris’ imagination gets away from him. The Dom did this. He’s read enough, listened to enough people talk to know the different ways a Dom can fuck a sub over. Scott’d told him about a friend of a friend whose Dom lent them out to a business partner, _without telling him_ , for a night. Chris had frowned into his beer for most of that night. Did that happen to Sebastian? Had someone, someone he didn’t want, touched him? Chris knew this Dom was no fucking good, took no care of this precious sub, didn’t make sure he was wearing enough or tell him sweet things or even make sure he was fucking _eating_ from the way Sebastian feels now, light on Chris’ chest. Also, trembling.

 

He’s trembling. Chris realizes, belatedly, that he has tightened his grasp on Sebastian while thinking this. Curled a palm around the back of that neck, the other around his hip, and had started fucking _growling_. He can feel Sebastian’s mouth move – he tucks his chin to his chest to hear what the sub is saying and hears _I’m sorry I’m sorry I don’t know why everyone – I’m sorry_.

 

“Sebastian.” The words stop. Chris loosens his grip, and starts to pet again. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I’m sorry, Seb, I am. Can you – can you answer more questions?”

 

Privately, Sebastian feels that he may be in some confused heaven-hellspace. He doesn’t think he’s ever been held so lovingly, pet so much, called sweetheart before. But simultaneously, he feels sick with how bad he’s been. How much care he has made Chris give him. With how much confusion he has caused, the uncorrected rumor of a Dom at home, one that made Sebastian feel like yeah, alright, maybe that way they wouldn’t get too freaked out taking a sub traveling with them.

 

He taps his fingers _yes_ once because he can answer more questions, he wants to be helpful (be good).

 

Chris strokes one hand from the nape of his neck all the way down his back and Sebastian tries not to shudder, but gives in, because he can’t not do that and simultaneously not mouth at the Dom’s neck.

 

“Did someone do something to hurt you?”

 

No tap. Sebastian isn’t sure what that means, but doesn’t think so, no. No one has done anything bad, in fact, everyone has been exceedingly nice. Robert comes by sometimes with dried fruit and has kissed his cheek _twice_ in the past week and the Russo brothers keep sending him pie and pancakes and Anthony tugs at him, his wrist and his hair, more than before. He’s been trying to stay out of the way, take himself and his fucking unmanageable sub-iness out of everyone’s way. But no, no one has hurt him.

 

Chris sighs once in relief. Bolsters himself for the next question

 

“Did your Dom do something you didn’t like, sweetheart?”

 

No tap. Chris feels Sebastian frown, hears the peel-apart noise of the sub’s wet cheek leaving his neck. He loosens his grip but keeps it there as Sebastian presses himself up, slightly, hands still pressed where Chris put them. He doesn’t look at Chris, but he looks somewhere at Chris’ adam’s apple and takes a breath in, clears his throat.

 

Sebastian knows he needs to say something, now. Chris has been almost unbearably, actually unbearably, kind. He came in when Sebastian was bad and then _kneeled_ and Sebastian remembers how _odd_ that made him feel because _Sebastian_ belonged low down, lower than the ground could take him, not Chris!

 

Never Chris, with his kind eyes and warm jackets and close family, with the loving way he talks about people, with his distractions for tired crews and promise of _drinks, after_ that Sebastian studiously keeps away from. He knows he must’ve gotten distracted because Chris hums a little, pets one hand over Sebastian’s shoulder and Sebastian works to not drop further with that reverberated sound, with the extra affection.

 

“I…” Sebastian has to pause. He can’t say Sir, not this openly while touching so much of Chris, being held so closely. That’s…a terrible imposition.

 

Chris gives another hum, says “yeah, honey?’

 

“I don’t have a Dom, Sir?” Sebastian says so quickly he barely even hears it himself, he can’t catch the _Si_ _r_ before it slips from his mouth. He's already crossed some boundaries, Sebastian figures, so he presses his face back into that warm, private spot between Chris’ neck and shoulder. Still damp because Sebastian’s a fucking pathetic sub who cries on good samaritan cast-mates.

  

Chris thinks he’s having an out of body experience. He feels Sebastian, feels his short breaths where he has tucked himself back in, feels the quick expansion of his chest between Chris’ broad palms.

 

His mind is everywhere else. Sebastian said he doesn’t have a Dom. Sebastian doesn’t have a Dom.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly not the real people, a disclaimer I want to reinforce.  
> In this chapter, Sebastian gets some more loving and we get some (but not all) of the insight into Seb's past and how he's convinced himself that needing anything is bad. Chris is loving and wonderful. There's some hot lovin'.

The first time Sebastian goes to a con he calls his agent after trying not to sound like too much of a fucking idiot but also wanting to double check that the sum of money she mentioned earlier was what they had paid _him_ not vice versa because it didn’t seems so reasonable that this was something Sebastian Stan got paid for.

 

The moment Marguerite figured out what he was angling towards (“You’ve never cared before, Sebastian.” “No! No, Mag…it’s not the sum so much as…can you tell me if it…they wrote that out to…” “To the biggest goofball in the United States formerly Romania” “Ha ha ha” says Sebastian but internally he says _HA HA HA_ because what the flip) she’s laughing on the phone. They’ve known each other long enough that she’s picked up on his quirks. He thinks she thinks they’re quirks. (She doesn’t think they’re quirks but she’s very kind and cares for him a great deal).

 

He doesn’t think it’s unreasonable to have gotten confused after. He showed up telling himself…okay stay polite. Keep to your own boundaries. Don’t look too bored when the crowd thins around you. Aren’t you glad you thought to bring a book? He doesn’t touch the book that whole night except to rip the publisher’s page out to sign for a flustered fan who forgot to bring something for him to sign _Oh my god I’m so sorry_.

 

It’s…electrifying. He can barely keep his mouth closed between smiles and the awe. They’re not all subs who want to meet him either, or the Dom’s that put him off clubs the moment his face got any recognition.

 

But it’s mostly the nicest people and they’re saying things like “You’re brilliant” and “you getting cast as an undiff’d role it’s….I’m so happy” and “Thank you so much” and then they want to _hug_ Sebastian. It’s not enough that their faces genuinely shine and that each one of them is so flipping kind and patient with his awkwardness and some of them even laugh at his odd jokes, then they say things like “would it be okay for us to hug?” or “could I hold your hand?” The first few times Sebastian thinks _oh_ maybe the handler told them to or maybe he looks nervous and even stranger fans can tell or maybe…

 

But then he realizes how genuine it is. That everyone lined up they - they’ve connected to him, his performance somehow. Moreover, that so many of them understand how important it is to ask before touching. And best of all, each time Sebastian can say _Yes, of course!_ or as he gets braver through the day just wrap his arms around them.

 

Sebastian doesn’t think he’s ever hugged so much in one day and it feels better than the best sweetest milkiest coffee. Bette than all the sugar and caffeine and even the warmth going down his throat.

 

Don’t get him wrong. There’s a couple of people that don't give him that feeling. A gaggle of young fans who crowd around him before quite asking but they go soon enough and the Domme and sub pair after that are extra sweet, glaring at their backs, the Domme taking a granola bar out of her purse for him. Passes it to her sub, who passes it to him. Sebastian still notices theses things. He knows a Domme can’t be feeding him willy-nilly, knows it’s polite. Courtesy.

 

The granola bar tastes like a granola bar but better.

 

\---

 

Chris isn’t sure if it’s supposed to be him here in bed with Sebastian, petting his hair and making absent hushing sounds as the sub sleeps. He’s asked Seb, but he can’t…he’s seen how Sebastian has been acting around him lately and can’t be sure. Consent’s important to him.

 

Sebastian is clearly some combination of down and asleep. His breath whiffles by Chris’ collar bone, and Chris takes a few minutes to breathe with him. He can feel the sub’s rib cage expand with each breath and thinks _seb’s going to be okay_ , _he let me hold him_ with each breath.  He’s freaking out a little.

 

He never – well he was suspicious. But of all the wrong things. He could tell Sebastian needed more care. Anyone could tell that Sebastian was blindingly sweet, eager to please, handsome, and so fucking clever _too_ how had a sub like that even ended up this fucking dep’d huh and who the fuck was Chris to have watched the whole time thinking selfish things like _hope_ his _Dom takes care of him_ and caught up in all his own shitty anxiety and now look at Seb now _look at him_ and maybe at some point in this spiral of thoughts Chris’d tightened his grip on the sub and started taking shorter breaths and realized he was freaking the fuck out.

  
Sebastian made a light sound, wriggled a little and Chris thought _great you big lug now you’ve scared him_ but the sub pressed closer. Worked his mouth around Chris’ collar bone. Chris felt that tongue press forward to his skin, a few licks as Sebastian if it was even possible _melted further_ into Chris’ chest, and then the sub was suckling.  
  
Sebastian Stan was suckling on Chris Evans. Chris Evans was in bed with Sebastian Stan, the most brilliant, kind, long-limbed mischievous-mouthed clever kid on this side of the planet and likely both sides. And Chris was taking deep breaths now. Hands smoothing up and down Seb’s back with each of them, up past the lowest couple of ribs, down to his bony hips, as the sub _suckled_ on his collar bone.

 

Seb was so fucking good. “Good at everything” Chris puffed out over Sebastian’s head, as he continued to pet, moving one hand up to the long-but-not-Winter-Soldier-long hair. Sebastian was no more awake than he’d been for the past few minutes but maybe Chris didn’t imagine that the sub hummed into his skin.

 

Chris would…they would figure it out. Chris would freak out a little maybe but they could talk in the morning. Chris could get himself out of the way if Sebastian figured out that he wanted someone else, someone a little more put together who didn’t have a crush on the sub that he could probably taste through his skin even while asleep. For now, he couldn’t do much.

 

He focused on the feeling of Sebastian’s feet between his shins (how gone was he that he could even imagine them? He’d noticed those sweet pale ankles more than once, admired the architecture of Sebastian’s feet while training on plastic mats), his mouth on his collar, the whole sub wrapped up in him.

 

\---

 

Sebastian has spent a lot of time thinking about why he allowed everyone to think he had a Dom. At first, he could lie to himself and say it was necessary. That they wouldn’t be comfortable having a sub traveling with them and working with them – just, a liability. It makes sense. Everyone’s comfortable with Robert because he has a Domme, right? (Later, Sebastian comes to realize how fucked up this world view is. He gets to feel deeply ashamed for being so differentiationist, for having internalized all this bullshit, and even worse for having thought he was _so_ progressive. It sucks).

 

But here’s the thing – it’s not, it’s not insane to think that some part of the fucking humongous Marvel conglomerate would feel more comfortable with some nice classic pairs on staff. It’s not like these views don’t exist.

He loves his mom. He really does. It takes up a good part of his heart, thinking about how wonderful she is. She’s brilliant, she’s strong, she’s beautiful. She’s the person who made each place home throughout his childhood. She’s the one who said _Why not act, baby?_ when he ranted to her for an hour when he was fifteen about all the reasons he _shouldn’t_ go to stagedoor.

 

She dealt with a lot of shit when Sebastian was a kid that he’s only really started unpacking as an adult. That those subs who used to sleep on their couch, those were unpaired subs who his mom would take in for a night or two (once or twice a week), help them get back on their feet, or hide them until someone could sort out what needed to be done. It’s not…Sebastian doesn’t think the rest of the world is backwards and the U.S. is some paragon of advancement even though maybe he thought so when I was a kid for just like a few weeks but he’d gotten disillusioned out of that quickly enough.

 

But hard times make people terrible. And his mom, well she’d been wonderful. She was a single Domme with a son and an actually respectable job as a pianist. She was unassuming, beautiful with her long thick hair and her smart hands. Any inspector who knocked on their door was treated to the sight of Sebastian doing his homework at the table, someone practicing piano, and Sebastian’s mom giving them a cool look and crossing her arms. Why had they interrupted her lessons?

 

And the door would close and the student would shudder, sometimes cry a little over the keys. Sebastian’s mom would go over and lay a hand on the back of their neck. Say _they didn’t find you_ and _we will find a safe space for you_.

 

So it’s only natural that she came out of this experience a little, a little hyper-vigilant. That when Sebastian differentiated, she smiled but also cried. And he’d always been acutely attuned to the emotions of others. And he could tell she was worried. Unhappy. (Once he told Anthony a little about this when they’d both been drunk and Sebastian had fallen half asleep with his head on his friend’s shoulder. Anthony had shaken his head and had rumbled _man this is the kind of shit that makes me almost relieved I didn’t differentiate_ and Sebastian had hummed).

 

Sebastian grows up learning that being a sub is great, it’s fine, it’s no big deal, there’s way more things to be made fun of about him like for example his soft face or his embarrassing accent or the fact that he can’t do anything right for the entirety of his adolescence. But at home, at home he learned it was something to fear. That the neediness that made a sub run away, made people like his mom useful and necessary was something that brought tears to his mom’s eyes.

 

\---

 

Chris wakes up and thinks _man did I accidentally take an extra Xanax last night_ because every muscle in his body feels _good_. His shoulders feel loose, his face feels relaxed, even his hands feel like he’s not keeping himself from grabbing something.  
  
The next moment he thinks _no_ _I did not_ because everything comes back to him and he can feel his heart rate crank it up to ten real fast. Sebastian. Sebastian Stan, who Chris’d been half in love with for half a decade. Sebastian who’d been taking really fucking awful care of himself lately, whose Dom had been – but there was no fucking Dom was there. There was no Dom and Sebastian had been doing what this whole fucking time? Nothing that worked because Chris can still see the way Sebastian had tried to press himself low, hands on knees at the interview and again in his room and oh god mary mother of Christ was Chris still in the sub’s room?

 

Chris opens his eyes and realizes _Yes_.

 

Sebastian can’t be more than a few inches away, but at some point he’d removed himself from Chris, who realizes he isn’t imagining a warmth on his neck. _Sebastian had been suckling last night_. Chris lets out a gusty sigh without meaning to, thinking of this kid this fucking kid who had been kneeling last night and calling him _Sir_ and crying and the minute he got further down _hummed and suckled and fell asleep_ with not one complaint.

 

Sebastian blinks. Because he’s awake, which Chris knew but hadn’t fully mentally caught up with. Just like how he hadn’t realized that even though the sub had pulled away at some point (that sure as hell wasn’t Chris, he was a notorious night octopus), leaving some type of protective 5 inch gap between them, he’d left his feet between Chris’ shins.

 

 _Maybe he couldn’t remove them without waking me up_ thinks Chris and then _or maybe not_ when he spends a few more moments cataloguing the pale face.

 

\--- 

 

There’s a stage right after high school where Sebastian realizes _holy shit people actually like me_. It’s confusing as fuck. He’s 18. He’s taller than he thinks he should be, he can’t seem to keep from knocking things over still, his mom is proud of him for getting into Rutger’s, his step-dad even more so, but everything is suddenly so confusing.

 

He’d gotten used to the way things are. It’s not - he doesn’t genuinely think he’s abhorrent or something. It’s, well, he moved during that awkward stage where people switch between growing out then up then out then up and never seem to have the aspect ratio figured out. His mind had been doing the same thing. Everything had been so different, his mom had fallen in love with this guy who _all right Sebastian had figured out he was actually pretty great_ _but was his school principle_ and everyone was speaking a different language. He’d finally figured out a little bit of the German and now when he introduced himself at the front of his class, under the teacher’s watchful eye, he saw a few kids snicker.

 

He’s past thirty now. So it’s not like his adolescent angst is still dogging at his heels. But there were definitely some years of his life where it felt like he was the most misshapen person in the world. There had been something wonderful, then, about learning to act. To become someone else, to create their story and shape their words and imagine their world. Like moving, but temporarily. And even better was the way his mom, or dad (by the time Sebastian’s actually serious about his school plays he’s not really calling him his step-dad anymore, because it doesn’t really fit, and they’re all cool with it), his drama teacher, other parents and some of the younger kids react.

 

Sebastian likes being part of something. That’s always held true. But he’s used to being part of that something while being someone else – Lee in _True West_ , or Jerry in that Edward Albee play or one infamous time, Rhett Butler. When he’s him, he’s pretty used to being on the periphery. It’s fine. He’s made himself comfortable there.

  
There’s something safe about not being noticed when he’s himself.

 

It takes him 6 weeks to figure out his roommate’s best friend is _like, man, super into him_ his freshman year of college. He figure’s that she’s just really nice? And it feels good for him to have someone to sit next to in that gen ed class they share. And a few times she has said some really, some really unusual things. About his shirt or his face. But Sebastian says weird things all the time so who is he to hold this against her?

 

It takes him a year or two to figure out that everything that made him really embarrassing to be around before is what makes him friends now. That the students in his modern drama class do, in fact, want to talk a little bit after class about different stagings of End Game. That his Western Theater professor is interested in his paper about capitalism and cuts and the Lumiere brotehrs.

 

It’s nice. It gets really nice. He’s in his senior year and helping out a few friends staging their own plays, acting in them, going over footage with his film friend. He’s TAing one screenwriting class even though he _really hadn’t thought he was qualified for this, Dr. Ingrid_ , but she’d read a little of his work at some point and really wanted another student helping out with the class. He’s growing out his hair a little.

 

He’s not been in a single relationship lasting outside a night and that’s fine too.

 

\---

 

“Hey.”

 

Chris watches Sebastian lick his lips. “Hey.”

 

They’re both staring at each other again. Chris wants to take Sebastian back into his arms. He’s not having a lot of complex thought at this point in the morning. Sebastian is licking his lips again. Maybe Chris has some chapstick in his pocket.

 

Trying to assemble his words but they’ve all spread, scattered across the room with the morning light, Chris wants to say _Sebastian please_ and then just, just, get out whatever hot lump that is sitting between his heart and stomach and make that into words.

 

“You should, you can head out, yeah? I’m sorry you had to, you know” and Sebastian’s looking a little to the side of Chris now, one hand moving to rub at the back of the other and the fucking _worst_ smile on his mouth. And Chris loves that mouth, so that says something.

 

“Do you want me to go, Sebastian?”

Seb looks up. Searches his face with pale eyes. Tightens his mouth and shakes his head no. One hand rubs against the back of another again.

 

Chris puts his hand over that some spot, smoothing the dorsum of Sebastian’s hand with his thumb. Mapping vein and tendon.

 

“Then I won’t go.”

 

Somehow, that thumb smoothing his hand is enough. It’s enough right now for Sebastian to feel something loosen out between his shoulders, to feel he’s getting more out with each exhale than in. Chris notices.

 

“Do you want anything right now, sub?”

 

Sebastian doesn’t know where to start. He wants to press his face into Chris’ chest and hum and feel it vibrate. He wants to go take a walk outside and wear that jean jacket and eat deep fried boiled eggs from a street vendor together. He wants a lot of things. He’s not, he’s not sure that he should be getting, asking for – it’s the exact opposite of everything he has been trying to do and it doesn’t seem, it doesn’t seem _helpful_ or even right and probably too needy and –

 

“Tell me.” Chris hand wraps around his. His face is open, worried but clear.

 

“I want to kneel again.”

 

Chris nods, folds back the blankets. Sebastian clambers out, barely gets caught in the sheets. He’s both anxious and eager to kneel again. His feet feel cold no longer sandwiched between Chris’ shins.

 

He’s about to drop himself onto the ground when Chris, who has scooted himself to sit at the edge of the bed, grabs his forearm. Grabs a pillow from the head of the bed (and in the moment he leans back exposes a strip of skin that Sebastian looks away from, then back at again) and tosses that to where Sebastian will kneel.

 

Sebastian doesn’t know what is wrong with him that he thinks he could cry. He kneels.

 

For a moment, everything’s terrible. He can feel the AC kick up from over the bathroom door. He feels the airs on his arms move. He can’t seem to breathe regularly. He’s simultaneously too close and too far from Chris.

  
A warm hand presses on the back of Sebastian’s neck. He exhales, and the warmth trickles down his back. It’s almost natural to press his forehead to Chris’ knee. The Dom makes a rumble that just, that just eases out the last dregs of tension from Sebastian’s body. Everything is good.

 

Time shimmers past them. Chris alternates a hand from the back of his neck to the top of his head. Feeling is only the rumble of different sounds from the Dom. Sebastian feels wonderful, feels as easy as the pillow under his legs, feels concentrated into the place between Chris’ palm and him.

 

\---

 

Sebastian’s brilliant at fan encounters. Chris knows this as sure as he knows that he’s….okay. He’s gotten better about insulting himself so he won’t say shitty but he’ll say _stilted_ about them.

 

Chris couldn’t possibly call himself touch averse. He spent half his childhood crawling around and about one of his siblings, half of his young adulthood bunking with Scott to help both of tehm level out, and all the time through has been close with friends. Touching-close, hands on shoulders and back-slaps and unashamed cuddles when needed.

 

But the difference is that those scenarios are private. They’re family and friends. Not so many people are watching. Chris doesn’t have to worry so much about screwing up because his friends and family already know how much of a goofball he is, they saw his goatee back in ’03, and he can’t say the wrong thing because Scott’ll slap him up the head.

 

But these fans, Chris can screw that up so easily. Screw it up even worse with the genuine ones. So it’s easier for him to keep to himself, be quiet, polite, smile. It’s the exact opposite of Sebastian, who for all his private shyness absolutely _glows_ in these scenarios.

 

Chris has spent 10 minutes behind an event curtain watching Sebastian listen to and smile at and hug his fans. Sit down and stand up and crouch and laugh and take selfies. Watches him receive a single gift and make a face so genuinely touched that he sees half the line of fans _aww_. He does, himself, and has a routine mini-fantasy of petting Sebastian’s hair when he makes a face like that. Kissing him, maybe only on the ear or cheek. Being on the periphery of that sweetness.

 

Around minute 10 he realizes how much of a creep he’s being and that this is probably a long enough break for him to get back to his own line and make for an _okay_ but not _Sebastian Stan_ experience. Sometimes he’ll genuinely connect. He never says anything rude. He really does listen to each one. But…it’s not easy for him.

 

\---

 

After a while, Chris tugs a little on the hair at the nape of Sebastian’s neck.

“Seb?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Hey Sebastian, hey,” the Dom gentles, rubbing the back of his neck.

 

Sebastian hums agreeably and presses his head against Chris’ knee. It feels almost impossible for Chris to take Sebastian up a little, move himself out of his own Dom space where the world is nothing but Sebastian, his sweetness, his need, everything existing only as it relates to them.

 

“I want to talk for a little, honey.”

 

“Yes, sir.”

 

“I want to help you come up a little.”

 

“Yeah, yeah," Sebastian exhales. Chris watches him re-gather, blush, lean back.

 

Chris wants to make it clear that coming up doesn’t remove whatever affection is being exchanged between them so he keeps a hand on Sebastian, moves it up the side of his neck and tugs at an ear lobe affectionately. Functioning as a Dom does something to remove his worry that he’s doing things wrong, and it’s so obvious that as off kilter as Sebastian has been over the past weeks (months? years?), he’s feeling a little better now.

 

Chris slips himself off the edge of the bed and sits down.

  
“Would you mind sitting back, Seb?” he asks as he leans back and half-crosses one leg.  
Sebastian’s staring at him through a few pulls of hair that’d fallen in front of his face. Chris hadn’t commanded. He hadn’t wanted to; they’re trying to keep Seb _up_ for a little longer so they can set their boundaries together. He watches Sebastian consider, his tongue work through his mouth, and then Sebastian unfolds.

 

Sebastian feels fairly stupid sitting on the ground staring at Chris. They’ve probably now spent too much time on the hotel floor ( _not_ you _you pathetic sub_ says a voice in Seb’s hind brain that he mostly tries to ignore but sometimes can’t). But he can’t deny that the air feels a little less heavy now that they’re both sitting like this. Not bad heavy, but the thick way the air feels before he drops further and then the air gets _really_ light like _on a high mountain could get altitude sickness but look at all the fireflies_ light.

 

Chris puts out a hand, but doesn’t grab his. It’s palm up, though, and Sebastian takes a moment to admire it. He’s done enough of this over the past few years, looked at Chris and thought _that neck_ or _his voice_ , and a favorite one is _those hands_. They’re…they’re Chris’ hands, first of all. That’s the best thing about them. But they’re also so big, and wide-palmed and square-fingered and just measuring out the span from wrist to finger-tip makes Sebastian feel nice inside.

 

Palm up. Maybe he wants to…should Sebastian hold it? He didn’t grab Sebastian’s hand, and has spent the past half-day being rather clear about physical touch. But not at first - not when he was worried or asking big questions.

  
  
Sebastian puts his own hand on top of Chris’. His hand seems to think _finally_ because it wraps itself around Chris’ palm (and the warmth of that hand combined with the fact that Sebastian whose by no means _petite_ can’t wrap his hand most of the way around Chris’ makes his chest feel good, grumbly). He looks up at Chris, who’s smiling one of those small smiles that Sebastian likes. Chris’ thumb sweeps over the back of Seb’s hand.

 

“I want to know what’s okay and what’s not, alright Seb?”

 

Sebastian nods. There’s a moment where Sebastian realizes Chris wants _him_ to start but Sebastian’s answer is mostly “everything where you are there is okay but I don’t want you to be there just because I said it’s okay because you’re too fucking nice” so he doesn’t have much to add.

 

“Well, we covered safe words, right?”  
  
Sebastian nods, feeling a little dumb now in both senses of the word.

 

“But…sometimes you can’t talk?”  
  
Sebastian startles a little. He hasn’t been with a lot of, actually not more than a few Doms, but a couple of them had liked to tell Sebastian to _stop talking_. That’d taken him down, sure, but not the good heavy-then-light-air way so much as the lower-than-the-dirt-on-the-carpet way. He likes talking. He knows he might do too much of it, especially when he gets like this and can barely think about what he’s going to say next and if anyone even wants to hear it, so it makes sense. He thought, though…he thought Chris might not be as bothered by it? Only because Chris was always doing things like looking to him in interviews with that nice face that said _What do you think, Seb?_ even when he didn’t verbalize it. Smiled when he spoke. Nodded. Asked questions. But this is probably different and so that’s fine, that’s fine too.

  
Chris watches Sebastian get a little stiff with that badly phrased question-statement. The hand in his lets go of its grasp a little. Sebastian looks down from Chris’ eyes past his nose and mouth to his chin. What had Chris said? Was he that totally off base? He’d noticed the sub could get a little quiet at times, never mind the fact that he clearly loved to suckle.  
  
“Unless you don’t want to go that low?” Chris amends, thinking maybe Sebastian only wants a surface dip with Chris. He’ll get his real fix with someone else, likely.

 

 “No, Si – Chris. _Rahat_. I’ll go as low as you, as you want me to? I can follow commands.” 

  
_Commands?_ “Sweetheart, I’m not worried about you doing what I say, I just want to make sure if your mouth is on my collar that I can still check in with you.”  
  
Sebastian feels a little ice melt. He would be…he would be allowed to suckle again? Even if Chris did end up gagging him or telling him to shut up, that was brilliant.

 

But Chris’ hand suddenly pulls on his and Sebastian makes an embarrassing cat-like noise as he tumbles forward a half foot. Chris’ other hand comes to cup his jaw, chin and he’s pulled up nearly nose-to-nose with the Dom. Who is frowning. Vehemently.

 

Oh shit Sebastian must’ve said that aloud. That was probably why Doms gave him commands to shut up anyways, if he couldn’t even figure out what he was saying when he was _up_.

 

Chris thought he was going to get up after he and Seb had sorted themselves out, and write down all the terrible fucking things he wanted to do to whoever had touched Sebastian Stan before. Sebastian was staring at him now, a little bewildered as a pink tongue slipped out to wet his lips.

 

Chris wanted really badly to have this conversation while Sebastian was up but he couldn’t help but sound a little commanding when he spoke.

 

“Seb. Seb, baby,” and no wonder he can barely fucking assemble a sentence when he has the sweetest sub in the world blushing at him. “You – I’m not going to tell you to shut up. I wouldn’t do that unless you told me before, like now when we’re both up and talking, that you liked that. That’s not a fair thing to do to anyone, is it? And – and” Chris lets out a gusty sigh and releases Sebastian’s face, only to grab the hand in his possession with both hands and bring it up to his mouth. He kisses it. Sebastian thinks _oh wonderful I’m dreaming_ as he feels stubble and warm lips touch his knuckles.

 

“Of course you can suckle again. Any – any fucking time you like, yeah, Seb? Any fucking time. My wrist, my neck” and Chris is about to say _my chest_ but stops himself because that’s the other big question.

  
“Sebastian, how up are you right now?”

 

Sebastian recollects himself. His hand is still in both of Chris’, which is fucking _wonderful_ it feels like how his whole body felt last night curled up to the Dom. _Up._ He should be up right now. He is mostly, but he leans back again. Leaves that hand in Chris’, but tugs them down to rest between them. Clears his throat and focuses on pulling his chin away from his chest.

 

“I’m good” he rasps out, and then clears his throat again.  
  
“Yeah you –“ Chris cuts himself off and Sebastian thinks for a wild moment _how was he going to finish that_. “Okay. Because I have a pretty big question that I want to sort out before we go any further.”

 

Sebastian nods.

 

“Do you want this to be sexual?”

  
Chris’ nerves are obvious to Sebastian, but the statement is clear and simple. Does he want this to be sexual? He thinks _what a fucking dumb question_ and wants to laugh until he understands. _Chris_ doesn’t want that. It’s an easy enough conclusion, it’s Sebastian’s default conclusion for the past years and now that Chris is here helping a buddy out doesn’t change anything. And Chris, he’s so fucking kind he would probably kiss Sebastian if he didn’t want to. Fuck him, even. Sebastian feels disgusting thinking about it. Not the fucking or the kissing, no, because that has routinely made him feel not-disgusting to think about for the past few years. But the idea of Chris, Chris putting himself through that for him.

 

“You don’t have to do that for me.”  
  
Chris is frowning and Sebastian is too. He’s seen Chris relieved, when he pulls off his sunglasses and joins Sebastian after wading through a crowd. When he’s relieved, Chris smiles and his big shoulders go down and sometimes he laughs a little even if no one has told a joke.

 

So Chris isn’t relieved. Which allows something in Sebastian’s frontal lobe to say _well maybe he_ would _like to kiss and fuck you_. Sebastian thinks again of his hand in Chris’, both times started by him.

 

In for a penny in for a fucking pound, he thinks as he leans forward. He can’t admire Chris’ face this up close because he’s mostly closed his eyes. But Chris’ lips on his, well, he can admire that.

 

He’s there for just a moment, suspended in time as he feels Chris’ breath on the side of his nose, his stubble rub prickle against his face, warm lips against his. And then he thinks _oh fuck no that’s not it_ and pulls away.

 

He tries not to land too hard back on his ass (when had he even lifted himself up like that?) and doesn’t want to pull his hand from Chris’ too rudely but all the same every party of his body wants to reflexively curl up like those dead millipedes that Sebastian notices on the concrete in L.A.

 

There’s a hand though, on his hip. Another in his hair. And Chris is leaning in, Sebastian has his eyes open to watch Chris’ plainly beautiful face, to see the focus in Chris’ eyes.

 

They’re kissing again. It’s brilliant. When they both come up for a gasp some moments later, Sebastian is half-curled into the space between Chris’ legs. Big palms are around his back, and Sebastian’s legs are butterflied so his knees lie on Chris’ thighs, his feet together near the V of his crotch.

 

Chris is smiling and Sebastian realizes he is too.

 

“Yes” the sub gasps out.

  
Chris nods. Runs one palm over Sebastian’s neck and then back down and nods. “Yeah, then, Sebastian. If you’re sure.”

 

“Of course I fucking am” says Sebastian, suddenly impatient now that he’s curled up again in the breadth of Chris’ body. “Have been for fucking years but –“

 

“No shit?” breathes Chris, his face suddenly so open and young that Sebastian thinks _let me kiss his cheek_ and does it before another thought can be queued up.

 

“No shit,” repeats Chris, smiling as he tugs Sebastian in a little. “Yeah, me too, Sebastian. Me too, sweetheart” he breathes out.

  
Sebastian thunks his head against Chris’ shoulder and Chris can hear his voice, muffled as the sub moans “I’m such a fucking idiot.”

 

“Now don’t say that,” chides Chris, curling a little to press a kiss to Sebastian’s shoulder _because apparently he fucking can_. “We’re both fucking idiots.”

 

“Not yet” says Sebastian quick as anything, and then he feels the sub’s body tense for a moment and sees that the back of Seb’s neck has reddened.

 

Chris is laughing, though. Big gasps of laughter, loosening his chest as he wrestles Seb a little closer and noses the sub’s face back up. _Yes_ he thinks giddily as he presses a laughing kiss to Sebastian’s thin cheek and then the other. _That’s my Seb. That’s Sebastian._

 

\---

 

The sub’s just, just yards and pounds of melted sugar on Chris right now. Chris is trying not to get addicted to the feeling of Sebastian so comfortable, so pliant laying on him. With each rumble that comes out of Chris comes an accompanying hum from Sebastian. Each heavy stroke down his back gets a nuzzle into Chris’ chest. He can feel Sebastian thinking, anticipates his voice before he speaks.

 

“Chris?”

 

“Sebastian.”

 

“I…you’re going to be here for a little bit longer, right?”

 

“As long as you want” swears Chris, earnest and too open in the way he can hate in himself.

 

Sebastian looks up and smiles at him beatifically. Chris feels less stupid, doesn’t feel sore.

 

“I want to set up our system, Seb.” Sebastian nods, but doesn’t jump in. “Is there anything you’re used to using? Lights or sub signs that you’ve learned?”

 

The sub frowns a little, pulls one hand over the other in a rougher way than Chris likes. Chris takes both hands and flattens them on his chest again. He rubs them a little, briskly, although they’re warm from being between the two of them.

 

“No.”

 

He’s upset, for a moment, that no one had taken a moment to teach this sub who clearly loves to suckle, who gets quiet when up _and_ quiet when down, any hand signs. It’s not uncommon. Scott knows a couple which Chris tries to pretend he doesn’t get because he doesn’t want to think about his brother having anyone’s genitalia in his mouth. That’s his little brother.

 

He doesn’t want his sub…Sebastian – he doesn’t want him to choose between communication and whatever feeling he sinks into that makes him hum and melt when Chris’ collar bone or neck or fingers (or nipple?) are in his mouth.

 

“Did you like the tapping?”

 

Sebastian taps both hands once on Chris’ chest, looks up wryly and Chris feels a rush of affection for this clever man.

 

“And you know…you know the color system?”

 

“I’ve heard of it, Sir” Seb says wryly, tapping both hands once again.

 

“Think we can combine the two? If you’re up to, you’re up to words you check in with the colors – green, yellow, red. If you’re not up to words, I want you tapping. One finger for red, two for yellow, three for green. That clear?”

 

Sebastian taps three fingers and says “Yes, sir,” suddenly sweet and pleasing in every way Chris has ever seen him be.

 

And Chris remembers Sebastian saying he was fine after hitting the barely padded wall on set. Remember Sebastian in a long-sleeved shirt pretending not to shiver. Feels afraid and anxious and puts both hands on Seb’s shoulders, makes serious eye contact. He feels the bone of the sub’s shoulder joint barely.

 

“I need you to promise that you’ll use them, Sebastian.”

Seb nods.

 

“When you don’t like something, it’s not working for you, you want to come up for a moment, anything – yellow or red. Promise me. If you’re thinking that, if it’s anything but green, I need you to check in without me asking. That clear, sub?”

 

Sebastian nods and then leans forward, deliberate. Presses his lips to Chris’. Chris can see he’s closed his eyes, and then loses himself to cataloguing the beautiful face, the feeling of Sebastian’s lips in a simple kiss.

 

He rolls the sub onto his back.

 

\---

 

When Sebastian’s on set, he’s using his body. Right now, though, Chris wants to really _see_ Sebastian’s body. Wants to map it out, to know it so well he can run his palms over it and think _yes that’s it_. And Sebastian must’ve picked up on that, because he’s blushing a little as Chris’ hands move to the bottom hem of his shirt and start rucking it up.

 

“May I?” the Dom breathes out and Sebastian thinks _yes yes yes_ and also says “Yes.”

 

He’s not…he knows he’s not in the best shape right now. Not the hulking shape he got into for Civil War, the shape that had felt nice and capable but also like being in a costume all the time, which Don at the gym had told him was not the healthiest way to see his own body when Sebastian’d mentioned it off-hand. But even, even regular filming-shape.

 

And it’s – he’s not clueless. He knows when he tries, he can be nice to look at. But this is _Chris_ and Sebastian’s been doing nothing for the past few months but curling up on his couch with Chris’ fucking blue jean jacket and showing up to events and fundraisers feeling a bit like a ghost. Feeling people’s eyes pass over him.

 

Chris has moved the soft t-shirt up now, and is coaxing Sebastian up a little to pull it over his arms, over his head. For those moments that Sebastian can’t see anything, he thinks of how Chris’ll react. Nicely, probably. He’s nice about everything, likely won’t draw too much attention to the way Sebastian looks. They’ll move on, Sebastian decides, feeling fine about that.

 

The t-shirt's off and Chris is staring at him. Sebastian tries to measure his breaths.

 

“You’re so fucking beautiful,” whispers Chris and then his lips are on Sebastian’s neck.

Big palms are roaming his chest, his abdomen, one finger traces a hip. Sebastian thinks he’s on fire, he’s being consumed. A mouth takes in a nipple as Sebastian tries not to think _but how_ as one hand smoothes up and down the opposite side. The second has pressed around Sebastian’s back, between the bed sheets and Seb to worm its way to his lower back. The pressure there makes Sebastian keen.

 

\---

 

Sebastian really doesn’t like blaming everything on his mom. He doesn’t think that way and doesn’t want to think that way. He saw a therapist for a little bit, he thought’d be helpful but the first one he’s seen wanted to talk about neglect and not being taught self-love by his mom and Sebastian had just fucking hated that. The second one had been better. Had recognized people who were doing the best with what they had. Had started differentiating between what Seb thought and what was actually happening, but then Seb got too stuck in his own head and all the shit got busier and he... he stopped going.

 

Around the time that Sebastian is actually getting named characters on TV, everything gets harder. In college, he’d had enough close friends and been close enough to his parents that he’d gotten the long hugs and occasional “go grab me a coffee and muffin, Seb” that he needed to shore himself up.

 

But he’s away from home. And, and dadhasAlzheimer’s. Sebastian doesn’t want to get better at saying that because he hates it. It takes them fucking eighteen months to figure out. Sebastian can barely notice between visits and phone calls, but his mom says that dad’s getting a little forgetful. One day on the phone Sebastian is talking about seeing Jupiter the last night and dad says huh? And Sebastian says what, pops? They change the topic. Looking back, Sebastian realizes that maybe he’d forgotten what Jupiter was. What a telescope was. What a telescope and Jupiter meant between the two of them.

 

His dad needs extra care. Sebastian is about to move home but his mom throws her weight and forbids him too. He tries to fly back as much as possible, but money is fucking tight. He saves money. He goes out for more and more auditions.

 

Somewhere, there, he thinks he started worrying about getting in the way. When he went home, he had just wanted to be helpful. To organize doctor’s appointments and cook food to put in their freezer and to not need more than they could give then. His mom was already taking care of one person, who was Sebastian to need care? Who was Sebastian to buy those nice new gloves when that was a fifth of a ticket home if he planned ahead.

 

He met a couple of decent people. People also remaking ramen into new meals, going to more auditions than they could quite think through. He didn’t…he didn’t _meet_ anyone. It didn’t feel like he had time for that. He didn’t want anything (himself) to get in the way.

 

\---

 

Chris is trying not to move too fast. He doesn’t want to, he wants to savor this. Sebastian Stan, here. Sebastian Stan, trading kisses with him. Sebastian Stan, laying back on the bed and letting Chris strip him.

 

It’s not that he expected Sebastian to do a strip tease, although Chris’ cock twitches a little at the _concept_ of it, but he hadn’t expected Sebastian to be body shy. There’s not much time for it, honestly, in all the filming and training and blocking. But this is different, and Chris knows its different.

 

The sub looks…a little wary as Chris starts to ruck his shirt up and Chris checks in for permission. The answer is decisive, and Chris isn’t in the habit of doubting Sebastian’s word (so much as all the shit he _doesn’t_ say) so he’s rucking the shirt up. He’s focused on Sebastian’s face, which is worried, but not scared.

 

He sits the sub up a little to fish the shirt around Sebastian’s arms, which have been raised obligingly. Even that moment of wrapping his hands around Sebastian’s waist to raise him up does something to him. The softness of Sebastian’s skin. But it’s just a moment, and then his sub is laid back, staring at him, waiting.

 

Chris can barely breathe. Sebastian he’s – he’s so fucking gorgeous it’s like a cosmic joke. Even like this, thinner than Chris has ever seen him. Which makes his chest doubly tight, because now he can fully catalog that change.

 

Sebastian’s shoulders are their normal handsome breadth, and it’s not that Chris expected Sebastian to keep up with that sheer mass he’d gained, he’d known Sebastian hadn’t liked it, Sebastian’d complained to him about waking up in the “middle of the fucking night to eat half a chicken, Chris, I can’t.”

 

But he’s not expecting that dip below Sebastian’s acromion. The definition of his clavicles. His nipples, for a moment, distract Chris from this catalog, because they’re fucking perfect and beautiful. They rest on muscle smaller from the last time Chris has seen it, but oh my fucking  god Chris could write an ode to those nipples.

 

And then Sebastian’s rib cage. Chris remembers back to the first movie. The first time he’d ever felt a frisson of something so electric that he’d had to step out on Sebastian suddenly. They’d been changing in the costume room, filming had ran late and half the rooms were closed for the day, their trailers made inaccessible by rain. Chris had only finished untied his boot straps when he’d looked over and had seen Sebastian, arms raised as he pulled off that illegally open-necked army-green Henley he’d been wearing.  
  
He’d seen the drag of Sebastian’s waist, then. Even then, at his baseline, Chris could’ve traced the lower edge of the sub’s rib cage. Watched it press against his skin as he took in a breath. Tried not to think about the sweet curve of that waist, the handsome swing of his hips.

 

So even on a good day, on that good day, Seb’s body gave away a little something of the curve of his lower ribs. But now – now Chris can count most of them. Can see sweat pool in the divots between them. Sebastian’s waist seems, it seems fucking ridiculous and Chris sets aside that anger once again because _not now_. It’s small enough that Chris thinks for a moment that he’d be able to span it with his hands, which is _ridiculous right_ and he doesn’t want to do because Sebastian should’ve been fucking keeping up with his health more, _Chris_ should’ve been there making sure he didn’t effectively starve himself.

 

Below the angles of his rib cage is that nearly concave stomach, below that, the beautiful cradle of Sebastian’s hips. Distracting, as always, for their width. The way they shaped the way Sebastian moved. Made a little too prominent again by that weight loss, but so fucking beautiful that Chris felt his last breath punch out of him. He thinks of sucking those hip bones, alternating between them, and moving closer and closer to his sub’s cock as Sebastian keens and begs. Of giving Sebastian anything he could want.

 

He scans back over, up from the hips through the small waist, the rib cage to those handsome shoulders, to Sebastian’s face where he is focused on Chris, looking like he is awaiting benediction.

 

And Chris, he’s always been so fucking gone on Sebastian. Gone on him in that costume room watching the kid strip, gone on him when he whined about waking up to eat, none of his clothes fitting. And gone on him now, however desperate he feels to curl up with the sub later and hand-feed him.

  
“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” he breathes out. And Sebastian is blushing, looking away. Chris lowers himself to taste that collar bone and holy fucking shit it tastes even better than Chris could’ve thought. Tastes like Sebastian.

 

He moves his hands almost thoughtlessly over the sub’s body. Mapping out the shape of his ribs, the pull of that waist. One hand finds it’s way to that slight space between the curve of Seb’s back and the swelling of his ass pressing into the bed. His fingers map out the vertebrae there, their bumps.  
  
Another hand seems preoccupied with that swathe of skin between Seb’s ribs and his hip. Moving up from bone to bone, cataloguing the curve of that waist as Chris’ tongue thoroughly catalog’s Seb’s nipples in turn.

 

And the sub, the sub is making some of the sweetest noises Chris has ever heard. He’s barely forming words, at first just “yes Sir, yes Sir, yes Sir” punctuated by gasps. Now it’s breathless hums, and one “thank you” so sweet when Chris pauses to switch between nipples that Chris has to lean up and kiss Sebastian. Has to kiss that mouth, those hollow cheeks, that chin.  
  
His hands have moved up to balance him, and Chris realizes as he kisses words into Sebastian’s ear “don’t thank me, sweetheart, don’t thank me, honey, don’t thank me, sub” that they’ve wrapped themselves around Sebastian’s waist.

 

And this fucking sub. He swears to god, his thumbs can nearly touch. His fingers aren’t meeting behind Sebastian’s back, but his thumbs are much closer to each other than Chris thinks they should be. Chris feels a growl work in him, _his sub, this neglected_  and his hands tighten slightly around the impossibly thin waist. Sebastian mewls and Chris looks up. Watches Sebastian’s mouth trace over the words “I’m sorry, Sir.”

  
Chris loosens his hands, resumes to the petting that it seems both he and Sebastian like, although Sebastian wriggles now when one of his hands comes up to absently smooth over the curve of his ribs.

 

“For what, sub?” asks Chris, wanting to wreck whatever taught Sebastian to apologize.  
  
“I…I haven’t been…it’s been so hard to do anything, I’ve been so fucking lazy and I know – I’m not strong the same way I was before and”

 

Chris wraps his hands around the tiny waist again to kiss Sebastian, because kissing seems like a really effective way to interrupt.

 

“I don’t give a shit about your gains, Seb” he says a little tightly.

 

Sebastian blushes, looks down, and Chris can see he’s still confused. For Sebastian, it’s that Chris’ chest is still rumbling, he still seems angry about something.

 

“You’re not happy, sir” whispers Sebastian finally, feeling pathetic.

“Oh, oh sweetheart.”

 

Chris is tugging him down now, back to one of their first poses. Both of them on their side, Sebastian tucked into the curve of Chris’ body, two strong arms wrapped around him.

 

“I’m not mad at you, baby.”

 

“It sort of seems like…it’s okay if you are, Sir.”

 

“Sebastian.” Chris pulls away from him, now and Sebastian tries not to keen…too loudly. The hands on him that pulled him away now pet a little, one circles back to his back and smoothes a line down his spine.

 

“I don’t like to see you hurting, Seb.”

 

“Sir, Sir, I’m _not_. Sir is – you’re doing so much right now, Sir, you keep touching me and kissing and I’m not hurt I swear, Chris, I just – I know I’m not – I’m not much to look at right now and I promise, Sir, if you’ll will tell me what you like to look at, I can, I can try to do that?”

 

“Sub.” The commanding tone cuts into Sebastian’s words and Sebastian feels something release in his chest. He was going down.

 

“I do not want you to look anything but healthy, do you understand?”

 

“Sir.”

 

“You’re – you’re so fucking beautiful any way you look. Now. During the last movie, during the first, any time in between. You’re so – you take my breath away. But right now, sweetheart, when I look at you I just realize how hard you’ve had it for the past few months, huh? Longer than that even, honey. I keep thinking about how hard it’s been for you.”

 

Sebastian feels something in him shatter. It has been hard. It’s been – it’s been _so fucking hard._ He hadn’t known how to explain it, how to fix it, anything. But everything had been so shitty, so difficult. The minute filming had ended and the stunt men weren’t tell him how quick on the uptake he was, Anthony wasn’t tugging at him, Robert wasn’t giving him absent-minded kisses on the cheek, and Chris wasn’t getting him coffee, lending him his jacket – the minute that was over Sebastian fell apart. He hadn’t realized how much he had shored himself up on those interactions. How much he’d relied on those attentions, those absent-minded affections. Until he was back in his empty apartment and food tasted like nothing and he felt always cold.

 

And Sir – Sir thinks it must’ve been hard, too. No one had told him, had ever said that things could be hard like that. But Sir – Sir’s petting his hair right now and pulling him close and saying “It’s okay, Sebastian. We’re going to sort it out, sweetheart. I’ve got you now, beautiful, and you’ve got me, haven’t you” and Sebastian gasped a little wetly at that, mouth pressing against the skin of Chris’ neck and then he found it hard to close his mouth again.

 

“Sweetheart, sweetheart” Chris calls and Sebastian thinks _that’s me, he’s calling me that, Sir is calling me sweetheart_ before he realizes he should say something back and manages to gasp out what may be a “hey” or a “yeah” against Chris’ neck. _Sir is here_ he thinks, simply.

 

“Hey, darling, hey. Hey, sub. Go ahead. I’ve got you right now, go ahead, Sebastian. You know your signs, right?”

 

And Sebastian presses three fingers into Chris’ chest, feeling suddenly the impact of having so much of Chris’ skin available to him, so much of his own available to the Dom. Three fingers for green.

 

“Clever boy,” says Chris and Sebastian moans. _Him, clever?_

  
“Clever, sweet boy,” repeats the Dom, and he’s pressing one hand heavily on Sebastian’s head. “You can suckle, if you like, sweetheart. Help yourself.”

 

Sebastian is latched onto Chris’ neck almost instantaneously. _Him, suckling. Sir would let him suckle. He was the luckiest sub in the world. Sir was so kind, so kind, so kind. Sir was petting him now, rumbling words into Sebastian’s hair. Words like,_ there we go _and_ darling sub _and_ so sweet _and these words were for him. The taste of Chris’ skin, the feeling of his pulse under his mouth was for him. He was being allowed that._

 

\---

 

Seb is a gift. He’s so fucking sweet, so good, so easy to go down. He’s more than a dream. Chris can’t stop petting the sub, rumbling for him, giving him anything he can.

 

Sebastian’s mouth is a hot brand on Chris’ neck. He feels the sub go down, and down, and then feels something start between them. Sebastian starts to undulate a little with each heavy suck.  A small rolling movement from knees to hips to mouth, then back down.

 

Chris moves his hands along with it, pressing on the small of Sebastian’s back over the bumps of his vertebrae to reinforce the roll, humming for him.

 

“Yeah, sub, yeah,” he says, feeling almost impossibly attached to the man in his arms.

 

Between one writhing movement and another, Sebastian becomes desperate. He keens suddenly into Chris’ neck. Undulates with a little more force and then pulls back to mewl, peer into the Dom’s face.

 

“Anything you want, precious boy. Absolutely anything.”

 

Sebastian keens again, taps three fingers onto Chris’ chest but then looks at him. The sub can barely help himself. He's a starved man at a grocery store, he doesn’t know how to ask for what he wants, what it is he wants besides  _Sir_ \- all of Sir. 

 

“Sir,” he says, sounding so fucking needy to his own ears.

 

But Chris lowers his head to kiss him. Presses both hands heavy to Sebastian’s back and says “Yeah, Sebastian, I’ll take care of it. I’ll take care of you. Tell me your color.”

 

“Green, sir.”

 

He pulls his hands up Sebastian’s back, and then back down, pressing almost indecently on the small of Sebastian’s back, then one hand moving to cup his bum. Sebastian presses involuntarily and feels a buzz of pure sex. Before he can think to move back, Chris hums into his hair “Yes, sub, exactly. So good for me, precious boy.”

 

That’s all Sebastian needs. That one word, that one word does more than a year of kneeling on his own could do.

 

They’re moving together. Chris keeps moving his hands, one moment petting then tugging at Seb’s hair, at his the neck and then holding the cradle of his too-bony hips. A litany of words is coming out of his mouth, “Yes, Sebastian, yes. There we go, sweetheart. Take everything you need, sub. Anything,” and he can’t stop. Doesn’t want to stop.

 

Sebastian’s coming and can’t even think of the word _to come_. Cannot think _veni_ or any other world in any other language. He feels that he exists in the space between Chris’ hands. He cannot exist elsewhere, cannot be anything but the gasps pouring out of him as he keeps pushing himself further into the Dom’s body and then snaps open, falls apart, crumbles. Into his Dom’s hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That time I wrote 10k and realized I still hadn't had Chris hand-feed Seb, which was half the point all along. And wrote so much of back story that I began to feel ashamed.
> 
> Coming up next - the final bit of Sebastian's back story, why he's so cautious to need. And Chris finally feeds him. Feeds him all the things and it's so sweet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chris feeds Seb juice, but not exactly as he wanted to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!! Those who read it before Fri the 23rd, I just rearranged everything so if it looks different now...it's because it is !!!
> 
> I didn't disappear completely! Only for months, you guys. Thank you to every reviewer, every patient reader, everyone who ever looked at this and sighed and thought /too bad this will never be updated/. I've had parts of this written for weeks and weeks, parts I just added, and parts that I desperately wanted to finish before updating, but realized that it might be more weeks or months before I could do that.
> 
> It's difficult for me to post this because I'm straddling the line between wanting to write something purely self-indulgent with a lot of things that make my stomach twist, and wanting to not mess up the continuity of the plot so badly that anyone reading frowns and thinks what the....weren't they somewhere else earlier?
> 
> I hope this is a good read. I hope to update again soon before the end of time.
> 
> ALSO: Warning - vague allusions to dub/con in this bit. By vague, I mean incredibly so. By allusions, I mean never explicitly written. But I want to be up front about this.

Scarlett’s the one who calls him out on his behavior. Sebastian knows he’s made a bad habit of putting things in his mouth (not  _those_  things just things and oh god would his subconscious shut up). There are 4-6 chewed out pencils circulating through his apartment, and he’s getting to a point where yellow flaked paint isn’t really doing it for him anymore. He’s trying not to chew on his nails because the makeup artist last week threatened glue-on nails if he kept up that habit, and he felt itchy just thinking about the slight but disconcerting weight of them. 

So that’s how he wound up sucking on the knuckles of his hand. He’s tried hard to curb the habit, but sometimes he’ll be reading and he’ll realize the hand propping up his chin has migrated a little and he’s got the proximal knuckle of his index finger just between his lips.

It’s embarrassing already before Scarlett even brings it up. Grown men and women don’t have habits like this. He learned to not suck on the collar of his uniform polo shirt in fucking middle school (a compounding factor of the  _look at that weird kid have you heard him speak_ ). 

But when Scarlett says “What’s that, Stan?” in that plain but kind way of hers, and Sebastian goes to say “What’s what?” but can’t because half his fucking hand was in his mouth (an exaggeration, this time the tips of his thumb and index finger), he wants to melt. 

Scarlett comes and sits on the black pleather couch that Sebastian has semi-claimed in the reading room around the corner from catering. The couch squeaks, but is nicely worn so that when he sits, it dips and the cushioning packs him in from almost all sides. 

It’s the perfect spot to escape to on slow days when there are hours between shooting the scenes that he’s in, but he’s too lazy ( _lonely?_  whispers his subconscious) to drive back. He’ll bring a book (today, Rilke’s letters) and his phone (to thumb through instagram and feel lovely) and some earbuds and let the time pass.

Sebastian likes it there even when Anthony doesn’t come by to make Sebastian sit on his feet (”This set, man, so fucking cold!”) or Robert to talk on the phone to Susan and pass Sebastian bites of his food with the distracted affection that is his hallmark. 

Chris doesn’t come back here a lot but that may to do more with the fact that his character’s in the title of the movie than distaste for noisy couches (or for needy subs like him). 

Scarlett’s poised and marvelous and Sebastian’s always been half-intimidated by her, half-awed. The couch doesn’t even squeak when she sits. 

“This is Rilke,” he replies, hopeful that her attention had been drawn to the small book in his hand and not the location of his other hand.

She raises her eyebrows. 

He reddens, he can feel it. 

His hands are guilty, half-twisted together around the book.

“Do I need to tell your Dom or will you?” she asks, and she doesn’t have to speak more loudly or clearly, her voice just always has that natural tone of command. 

Sebastian tries not to tip his head too far down when she says that. (Head-tipping got him a confused stare from Anthony the other day when Robert passed the phone over and said “Tell her I’m eating the fucking sandwich, ok?” and Sebastian shyly said on the phone to Robert’s Domme “He says he’s eating the fucking sandwich?” She had laughed a little but given a gusty sigh, maybe frustrated with her distance from her sub or  _maybe mad at Sebastian_  and that second feeling made him stick his chin to his chest in a way that Anthony had definitely not looked at as if it was normal). 

“I’ll take care of it,” he promises, unable to directly lie when she’s so few feet away from him. Maybe if he was on the other side of the room in one of those significantly less friendly office chairs, maybe then he wouldn’t feel the weight of her presence like this. 

She hums. 

“I hope I don’t see you doing that again,” she says, nodding indicatively at Sebastian’s slightly wet finger tips.

He nods. 

For a while, a few weeks or maybe months, he’s able to just avoid it all together. It makes certain things harder (like getting comfortable on that pleather couch and zoning out to good music or mostly falling asleep) but he doesn’t want to…he doesn’t want to be doing something clearly so _shameful_. Something that you’d have to tell his Dom about, because then maybe Scarlett _would_ see him again and _would_ ask for his Dom’s number and Sebastian thinks (a little ridiculously) that maybe he could hire someone to answer a phone and pretend but, really, those are new lows. He’d rather just not be doing anything bad.

But after some time, as filming is slowing down and there’s just the occasional _oh shit we got that scene right but it wasn’t raining the first day we shot it and it was raining the second can you guys come back_ , his mouth starts feeling funny. His days are a little quieter. He doesn’t have to keep up the same ridiculous level of fitness, and Don is newly busy because his kid’s starting school. So it’s natural for him to want to skip meals seeing as he was eating fucking eight of them a day before. And maybe it’s that confused sensation that’s making his mouth feel funny and empty. Or his stomach feel cold. Because tea and soup barely help (his mother’s usual suggestion for _maybe you’re getting a cold, darling_ ).

But he wakes up curled half into the closed window of the airplane on his flight back to New York, feeling dry and cold and nasty like he usually does on planes (and most of the time, lately) but actually, a little better than when he took off. He’s perfected his _I guess there aren’t trains that run in that direction?_ airplane huddle pretty well, lately. He’ll take the factory-smelling blanket they’ll offer and pull it up halfway over the back of his head, across one shoulder and over his knees so that when he leans into the window or the side of his seat, he can create a nice cocoon for himself.

And in this cocoon, while sleeping, he’d tucked the knuckles of his hand into his mouth. It feels good. It feels like that odd hunger and tightness of his mouth was for this. And it’s wrong, he knows it is, taboo and embarrassing and something that he should be punished for.

But with his stomach sinking as the plane lands, he realizes that he’d rather be bad in this one thing but have that small bit of comfort. He’ll save it for desperate scenarios, he decides.

Then most all nights become desperate scenarios. 

So one night, at least a week into their return to LA, as Chris tells his sub to _turn around_ _so that I can spoon you, yeah?_ , he hears a small wet noise as the sub is falling asleep.

The sub has a finger in his mouth.

 

\----

 

Sebastian loves holding hands. Chris does it automatically once they settle in LA, but around the second or third time notices Sebastian’s frown. They’re standing behind the curtain, a few quiet minutes as crew sets up. 

His quiet love wrinkles his nose, looks at their joined hands. He watches for a few minutes (caught up admiring the curl of his chin, the dip of his lower lip) before pulling a little on the hand in his grasp.

“Sebastian?”

Sebastian glances over, smiles. Chris wonders how lucky he is that he gets to watch Sebastian light up with sweet words.

“You like this?” he asks with an indicative tug on their hands, words made dumb by the warm thing that sits underneath his sternum every time.

Sebastian hums and tugs a little too in response. “I think it’s brilliant, sir.”

Chris grins. “Brilliant, sweetheart?”

He watches Sebastian’s smile turn a little wider, slyer. 

“Yes, Chris. It’s…it’s new. But it’s really nice, it’s nice when we’re holding hands, to know you’re right there?”

“Yeah, I like that too, Seb.” He also likes knowing that he can keep at least one of Sebastian’s hands warm at any given time. Knowing that he gets to walk around with this connection between them, this  _Sebastian and Chris_  that makes him pleased, possessive. 

It may say something about Chris that he genuinely cannot help but reel Sebastian in now. Take his hand from Sebastian’s to move it across his shoulders, down to his thin waist. He rubs there a little, pleased at the slight extra give, maybe imagined, or maybe from feeding the sub breakfast on his lap every morning for the past few days.

His Sebastian, though, takes a while to think things over. He knows that. Can see it in the spread of Sebastian’s brows as he cuddles up to the sub unabashedly. 

It’s the next day, then, when Chris is waiting outside a conference room to catch a Marvel Man (a term the whole crew has adopted for the lawyers and professionals that follow them whenever the public is involved and clearly underline what to say and  _what not to say_ ) and ask some questions. 

He thinks he knows what they want him to avoid, but he gets anxious about it. About letting something slip, even though he knows he doesn’t have many Marvel secrets to let loose, and about maybe you know, never being trusted again or cut from a contract or  _you know_  normal anxious thoughts. 

He feels familiar cold fingers graze his elbow and whirls around, happy, relieved.

“Hey!” It makes him feel good to have his sub around, settled. 

Sebastian looks shy, inquisitive, and lets his hand drop off of Chris’ arm. 

“Hi, Chris.” 

It doesn’t even take that much of Chris’ Sebastian-related expertise to see the hesitant shape of Sebastian’s mouth, the slope of his shoulders, and tilt his chin over to a more private corner. 

Standing by a glass container of likely stale nilla wafers and some styrofoam cups, Chris turns his attention to the sub who is studiously  _not_  looking at Chris. Gathering his thoughts. Chris opens the container and grabs a nilla wafer.  

It is stale, but not bad-tasting-stale just a little soft and Chris lets it dissolve on his tongue. Looks by it and sees some wrapped chocolate squares in an ugly bowl, and unwraps one to check it out. It’s not grey-dusty at all, looks fresher than almost anything there. and Chris sets it aside to give it to Sebastian. Not now, when it’ll distract him. 

Sebastian has worked his way into looking at Chris in the interim, his pale eyes focused now.

Chris nods, encouraging.

“You like holding hands with me.”

Chris nods again. He stays quiet. He wants Sebastian to have the time to say his piece.

“I like holding hands with you too.”

Another pause. Chris wonders if there are any juices in the mini-fridge below the counter he’s leaning on. Cranberry, maybe, for his sub. 

“You do it when we’re out, and when we’re at home - in your room.” Chris wants to correct the sub, let him call Chris’ room home, any place where both of them put their heads down home, but holds that back, too. Instead looks at the drawn look of Sebastian’s cheeks when he’s working on what to say. Plans out kissing them, too, when he gives him the chocolate. 

“You didn’t ask me for permission, after that first time” say Sebastian in a rush, and Chris’ thoughts about juice and kisses come to a halt. Sebastian doesn’t like it. His sub, his sub - he knew he should’ve asked again. He got too complacent, and now he’s made his sub uncomfortable. 

Sebastian speaks faster, now, and takes a step forward. Looks concerned, but Chris hates that too because Sebastian needs to focus on himself, not on his clumsy Dom who needs to check his fucking privilege more often. 

“I like that! I like it, you don’t have to ask. I just, when I -” Sebastian is frustrated, exhales and purses his lips. Runs a hand through his hair, and then moves that hand forward, and balances it delicately on Chris’ wrist. It is cold. 

“When I, if I wanted to I could also…” the sub looks lost for words. Worried. 

Chris looks at the pale hand on his wrist, looks at Sebastian’s twisted mouth, and gets it.

“Ohmygod. Yes, Sebastian. Yes, sub, yes. Any time you like. Any fucking time. Did I not? I should’ve told you, I’m so fucking sorry, sub.” 

He twists his hand to make it open for Sebastian, who looks at him searchingly, then wraps his hand around.

His sub never grabbed Chris’ hand in public. His Sebastian fucking loved touch, turned into every arm around his shoulders, wrapped his ankle around Chris’ foot every time Chris knocked it into his, hummed into his neck most nights. Sebastian who routinely got Chris’ attention when they were out by pulling at his elbow, a light graze. Like he thought _he wasn’t allowed to do any more than that_. Shit. Sebastian could tackle Chris in front of half the world and he wouldn’t be mad.  

He says that, too, trying to make his body language as available as possible. Make the tilt of his shoulders as  _this is your Dom_  as he can.  

Sebastian responds to that, hums, and presses himself in. Wraps one of Chris’ hands instructively around his waist. Keeps the other locked in his between their chests. 

Chris moves that hand across Sebastian, petting. Feels the knobs of his spine under his sweater, and moves down to wrap his hand around the slip of Sebastian’s  _too thin_  waist. It’s only been a few days. But Chris can’t imagine this beautiful boy not being  _his_. 

He grabs the chocolate on the counter and herds Sebastian around a little so he’s tilted three quarters into Chris. Offers it up to him, feels warm when Sebastian parts his lips, submissive.

Breaks off a piece one-handed by holding the chocolate between his teeth, and then puts that slip on Sebastian’s tongue.  _His sub_. 

He has to put down the chocolate again, to wrap his single free hand possessively around Sebastian, to trace the line of Sebastian’s opposite hip and feel a rumble work its way through his chest. His chest where he feels Sebastian’s mouth move, feels the swallow.

 

\-----

 

It takes Chris maybe 16 hours to figure out that the sub can, in fact, sign some. They’ve had breakfast together (which was lovely), they’d watched some crappy hotel TV together, and they were taking a bath together when Chris’d accidentally gets some soap in Sebastian’s mouth. He was really focused on cleaning his lips, okay? He was….focused.

Sebastian is spitting and laughing and Chris might be wrestling him and palming at him more than helping, heady with the feeling of Sebastian’s smooth skin under his hands. Sebastian has one hand on Chris’ chest, and twists it into a _Sir_ and then a subsign that would mean _stop_ if it didn’t have that curl of the pinky at the end that meant _happy_ or _laugh_.

Chris laughs and moves his hands down to Sebastian’s hips, trying to settle and about to tease the sub and say that he’ll _be good_ when he realizes what just happened. Spitting out soap and wrinkling his nose, it doesn’t look like the sub has figured it out yet.  He thinks – maybe he’ll just not mention it. Keep his subs hands to his chest.

But then Sebastian’s hand slips up across a pec, and he signs a simple _Sir_. Chris looks down. Sebastian – well honestly, it’s fucking great to see Sebastian pretty much as high _up_ as he’s been since Chris entered the room. Sebastian looks contrite-stubborn in the way he does when he changes up the blocking of a scene but then spends the next twenty minutes quietly explaining why to a Russo and whichever producer is around.

 “Let’s talk when we finish our bath, Sebastian,” Chris says, feeling more even-keeled than he should with all of Seb on his lap in a hotel bathroom in another country. Or maybe, just as even-keeled as he should.

“Signing counts too, babe,” he adds, and then he moves his hands up to tweak at the ticklish spot on Sebastian’s shoulder that he has found, and the sub moves his forehead to Chris’ shoulder, both seeking comfort and curling up with the force of his laughter.

 

\-----

 

“Come over here, fussbutt” beckons Robert from across the room where he’s texting with his sunglasses on.

It says something about Chris’ conditioning that he recognizes that Robert is calling for  _him_.

He hovers over Robert’s shoulder for just a moment before Robert looks up, his pink-grey sunglasses slipping down his nose. Robert scrunches his nose adorably to try and get them back up.

“Would you mind?” he asks, indicating the phone in one hand and the iced tea in the other.

Chris pushes up the glasses, and then tucks a bit of Robert’s collar straight under the lapel of his jacket.

Robert grins at him unrepentantly as he moves to put his iced tea in the phone-hand and pats his newly free one on Chris’ sternum.

“You doing okay there, Evans?”

Feeling his cheeks redden, Chris nods. He knows, knew, what Robert was doing and he  _appreciates it_. His hands get itchy and he doesn’t want to patronize anyone especially not any of his castmates who might think it’s the  _leading actor getting uppity_  and the timezone meant that he could barely facetime his brother or friends (and an unvoiced reason, but perhaps the most eminent: that he’d been watching Sebastian with his unreasonably handsome long hair and unreasonably sweet reflective eyes and unreasonably lovely shoulders and smile and sly mouth and _shit_ ). 

Chris is still feeing vaguely caught when one of the sound dudes comes up to talk to Robert about talking  _through_  the beard (some of these problems, Chris swears to god…) and Robert’s the fucking best. He’s the fucking best because he doesn’t edge away from Chris he just looks up to him all wry but also just subby enough to make Chris feel warm and leans in so that Chris’ hand on his lapel can slip further forward.

Pleased by the feeling of Robert’s heartbeat under his hand, Chris scans around the room to see if anyone needs a hot drink or lunch. Scarlett’s eating a wrap one-handed while using the other hand to write in her planner, Anthony isn’t in sight, but at the far end of the room he catches the movement of Sebastian slipping out of the room, empty-handed.

Warmer, more certain, Chris gives Robert a pat as he heads over to deal with that next.

 

\-----

 

Sebastian doesn’t wake up immediately after he comes. Chris isn’t expecting him too. He spends a good amount of time gentling him, moving his hands down the sub’s thin back slowly, telling him over-honest things like “the most beautiful, aren’t you, dove? Just the most gorgeous, best boy. So fucking honored.”

But a few minutes later, when he thinks Seb should be stirring a little, he’s still panting shallow breaths into Chris’ neck.

Chris pats the sub a little more. Tries to peel him off his chest a little, not because he wants the space but because he’s worried, he wants to clock Sebastian’s face. And the sweet sub – this fucking treasure that Chris has been entrusted with – groans. Not a good groan, or just an unhappy one. But the love sounds sick.

Smoothing Sebastian’s hair back, Chris feels how clammy his forehead is. He can start to see the high flush in Sebastian’s cheeks.

“Sebastian?” he asks, trying to interject more authority or urgency into his voice. Sebastian’s eyes flutter. Chris is, on a scale of one to ten, is fucking spooked.

His first time with the guy of his dreams and he messed everything up. He knew the sub had been unsteady on his feet earlier (had he even seen Sebastian on his feet since he’d come in? Seriously, had he? What the fuck are you doing, Evans?). It was clear as day that Sebastian’d not been taking good care of himself, or that nobody had been helping him. And he’d strutted in there, had the sub fucking kneel for him, kissed him some, marveled at his insane sweetness, helped him get off, and done what, exactly?

As Chris was mentally chewing himself out, he inched towards his phone, discarded on the side table with his wallet and room key. The sub made a sound, a keen that made Chris want to completely cave-Dom and shove the sub’s face to his chest and curl them up in blankets. He got his phone within fingertips reached, and felt the twinge of his bicep as he stretched to grab it.

He texts Anthony “SOS”

Anthony responds “?!?!?”

Chris debates calling Anthony, and maybe unsettling Sebastian with the sound of someone else on the phone, versus continuing to text one-handed while using the other hand to pet Sebastian’s sweaty hair and periodically feel his forehead. He goes for a whispered phone call.

“Evans,” Anthony answers flatly.

“Anthony…” Chris doesn’t even know where to start. He went to check up on their castmate, who yeah Chris’d been carrying a torch for for maybe half a decade or something whatever, found him putting himself down, helped him get down, and then back up, and then down again with an orgasm, and was now realizing said super-crush-love of his was dehydrated-hypoglycemic-or-sick?

His quandary is neatly solved by Sebastian humming a weak “Mackie?” into Chris’ neck. Anthony hears it with his super fucking bat hears, and hears Chris gentle the sub.

“Hey, sweetheart. Don’t worry, relax. I’m just talking to Anthony. Don’t worry, kid. Tuck in. There we go.”

Anthony figures most of it out. He promises to bring something to eat. Chris only remembers that Anthony doesn’t have a room key after they hang up, when he’s focused on getting he and the sub a little more upright against the headboard, but moments later he hears the click of the door (Seb doesn’t react. He’d gagged a little when they’d moved upright, and Chris had focused on counting the sub’s breaths).

He smells Anthony before he sees him, which is part of the gift basked of fucked-ness that Chris is now giving to himself. Yes, of course his senses are hyper-attenuated after not even spending the night with Sebastian. It's all cool, his body just 100% wants Sebastian. 

Anthony comes in with a bottled smoothie, a bag of nuts, and two bottles of water. He comes close, but seems to sense that everything in Chris is saying _intruder intruder hide the sub intruder_ because he leaves the food on the nightstand. He rummages around the bathroom as he speaks.

“Tell Seb I said _hey, white chocolate_ , okay? I’m going to call the Russos and tell them – well fuck, I’ll tell them something, Chris. And if you need anything else,” he comes out of the bathroom with a pack of baby wipes and a few hand towels, which he drops on the nightstand and does a really good job of not looking too _knowing_ about, “hit me up, man.” He gives a tender look to Seb, and Chris’s lizard brain pitches in a _maybe nest?_ before Anthony turns around.

Chris twists open the smoothie, orange-banana, and cradles the sub up to his shoulder. Switches it out for water, worried Sebastian will choke.

“Darling,” he says, rumbling a little in his chest. “Sebastian, sweetheart, take a few sips of water for me, okay?"

He presses the rim of the bottle to Sebastian’s lip, and Sebastian suckles weakly at it. Chris thinks he’s going to fuck up whoever let Sebastian get like this, after he finishes spending a few months kissing the sub back to his usual brightness.

“Just a few sips, sub, there we go,” he breathes under his breath as Sebastian accepts the carefully tipped water. A few droplets run down the side of a pale cheek, and Chris gets them with his thumb, rubbing a little. The sub coos.

“Let’s try something else, alright, honey?” he says, emboldened by the way he can hear Sebastian’s breaths slow, feel his head lift a little.

He presses the smoothie to the sub’s lips, and the sub makes such a pretty noise that Chris has to close his eyes a moment. He’d known, he’d dreamt of having this boy on his lap, of feeding him good and precious things.

He just wishes – he wishes a lot of things.

Chris focuses on the feel of the sub on his lap. Sebastian's head on his shoulder. The sprawl of his legs to his side. The curves of bone in his back under his palm. 

The sub turns away from the smoothie for a moment, likely to catch his breath. Chris kisses his forehead. He says “Sir” and Chris kisses him again, and again, resting his lips against that treasured temple.

In a few minutes, he’ll make sure the sub is doing better. If not, he’ll get Robert to find a good doctor. Robert has connections. He’ll help the sub get cleaned up. Change him into some sweatpants, ask to borrow a t-shirt and some basketball shorts, and get them back in bed. He’ll have the sub sleep on him. He’ll take care of him.

  

\-----

 

The first time Sebastian actually fell asleep with Chris, not just dozing off from subspace but actually _gotten in bed to sleep_ , he tried very hard not to do anything embarrassing. They’ve settled back in LA, after a good amount of discussion between Chris, Robert, Anthony, and every Marvel executive ever. He got into a pair of pants and an old t-shirt, lifted the covers, and laid down on his side facing the middle of the bed.

It wasn’t hard to relax. The covers smelled of Sir (wasn’t it wonderful that Chris was letting him call him that?), the pillow was soft, the blankets were a soothing weight over him. He heard Chris puttering about in the bathroom, and then click off the bathroom lights. Pad across the room to the bed. Lift blankets on the other side, letting in a gust of slightly cooler air, which would make Sebastian unhappy except for then Chris gets under those blankets and Chris is much better than blanket-warm air.

He feels like sunlight. Chris is so close to him that he can feel the movement of his breaths, the slight tug of blanket as it rises with his chest, the warmth of his body without even touching. He’s had such a good day, he’s been so warm and cared for, so spoiled. So it’s imperative that he not mess it up with anything embarrassing.

He tries not to make those noises he can sometimes hear himself make when he falls asleep. Keeps his hands knotted together _under_ the pillow.

As Sir’s breaths keep whiffling over him, as the smell of a shared space sinks in, he relaxes impossibly more. He hears one of those high noises slip out. Sir moves a little, and Sebastian tries to shut his mouth tighter. He wanted to be good.

But then one of Chris’ hands moves to pet at Sebastian’s hair. Sir, who has been so kind to him today, being generous once again. Touching Sebastian even when he doesn’t have to. More of those noises slip out, and Sebastian tightens his eyes closed and bites his lip. Sir’s hand pauses in his hair. He thinks most likely, he won’t be getting hair-pets for a while. 

Inexplicably, that hand moves to the place between his shoulder blades, and tugs Sebastian _forward_ to Chris’ chest. Chris’ other hand worms it’s way under Sebastian’s waist until his elbow bends there, the Dom’s hand rests on his back. The first hand goes back to its petting.

Sebastian thinks he must be the luckiest Sub in the world. His cheek is on Sir’s shoulder, their knees are almost tangled together. It was enough for Sir to let him sleep in this warm place that smelled so much of Sir (it was enough for Sir to have done any one of the many things he had done over the past 48+ hours). Now, he is so warm he feels he may melt. More of those fucking noises slip out.

He bites his lip almost punitively hard ( _could he fucking stop that?_ ) and Sir is tutting and it’s probably just fair from now on if he goes and sleeps somewhere else? There’s a corner by the hotel wardrobe that he thinks he could tuck into. Chris tugs his lower lip free, but Sebastian keeps his eyes squeezed shut.

Just a few days and he’s already learned to be greedy.

“Baby,” says Chris, the hand under his waist moving to caress the middle of his back a little.

“Yes, Sir?”

“No more chewing on your lip, all right?”

 Sebastian nods, but that moves his cheek against Sir’s chest in a way that’s maybe also stealing. He should’ve spoken.

 “That’s for me to do, yeah, sub?”

 “Yes, Sir.” 

He can feel the shift of muscle in Chris’ chest (but not see him move, eyes still stubbornly shut) as Chris leans in. Kisses him. Each of Sir’s kisses are mind-blowing. It feels so good just to have their lips press, but then Sir will move on to his cheeks, wander kisses across Sebastian’s face (sometimes across the bridge of his nose, sometimes to his forehead, to the spot behind his ear), to circle back to his lips for another passionate interlude.

He’s just a touch more down when Chris ends it, nipping teasingly at Sebastian’s lips, and his eyes must’ve opened at some point because he sees his Sir’s handsome eyes focused on him.

He keens as he twists his face to nuzzle at Sir’s shoulder just a little bit, and then freezes. _Again_. He squeezes his eyes shut, mouth closed.

 “Sebastian, what’s wrong?”

Chris watches his sub shake his head and rubs at the boney press of Sebastian’s vertebrae in the way he’s learning the sub likes. His sub likes almost any touch. Chris is only too happy to provide it. 

“Sub.”

A nod into his shoulder, Sebastian’s lips almost pale with how tightly closed they are.

“Tell me what’s up?”

A hand moves against Chris’ chest, and then Sebastian starts speaking. Chris saves his interruption of _you’re allowed to sign, darling, you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to_ in order to focus on what’s being said.

“I don’t want to…disturb you as you’re falling asleep, Chris.”

“What would disturb me, baby?” he asks, barely able to look at the sub’s unhappy frown. He tugs the sub closer. His Sebastian, he’s learning, is very confused about some things. This morning he tried to convince Chris that _he didn’t need to eat breakfast if Sir had already given him dinner last night_ and a little afterwards, when picking a sweater of Chris’ to wear, asked if _Sir had anything too old that he didn’t use_?

The best way to approach this, Chris is learning, is to allow the sub to explain himself. A few days ago he had tugged Sebastian to stand between Chris’ legs as Chris sat in the chair by the breakfast table, and wrapped his hands around his boy’s skinny hips. Said, “Well, sweetheart, how often do you think you should eat?” and listened to that (painful) explanation. 

So now, he waits for Sebastian to explain. He keeps petting him, and drops an absent-minded kiss at his brow.

“I, Sir, I...make noises when I’m falling asleep.”

“Yeah, Sub?”

He waits for Sebastian to continue. Looks down to his chest where the sub is curled up, but has now twisted his head down to avoid looking at him.

“What’s going to disturb me, sweetheart?” he asks, with the same sinking feeling he had that morning at the breakfast table when Sebastian carefully spoke and a dozen times besides.

“The noises,” Sebastian mumbles into his chest.

Well, that’s enough.

Chris moves back a little to get enough leverage to put both hands under Sebastian’s shoulders and pull him _up_ so that he’s no longer half-tilted onto Chris but almost entirely laying on him. He spreads his legs so that the sub’s fall between his. Winds them around his boy’s thin calves. 

Sebastian is bewildered, holding himself slightly aloft. Chris rubs one of his hands down the sub’s where they rest on him (this, at least, Sebastian has learned to do). Then tugs him so he rests his head in Chris’ collar. Feels the humidity of Sebastian’s breaths there.

“Sebastian, you make any noises you like.”

Sebastian makes a worried noise into Chris’ neck. His hands move to sign against Chris’ chest (this, too, is progress) a quick _why?_ and then _Sir?_

He puts one hand on the nape of Sebastian’s neck, heavy. Winds the other around the sub’s too-small waist. Rumbles.

Some tension dissipates. Chris moves to kiss the top of an ear. He makes another noise now, Dom-ish as well, and presses his hand more tightly to Sebastian’s neck.

“There we go, sweetheart.”

Sebastian’s breath hitches, and then one of the small noises Chris heard before slips out. He pets the sub with the hand around his waist, moving to pet ridged ribs.

Sebastian shivers a little, and then mewls again. Chris pets more, lays another ear-kiss.

“There’s my clever boy. There we are,” Chris whispers, feeling the tremors that are moving Sebastian’s belly against his.

In moments, his sub transforms into a pure weight of skin and bone, mewling and keening into Chris’ neck, moving only to press into Chris’ touch.

“Why would I ever not want your noises, baby boy?” he asks, twisting his legs where they hold Sebastian down.

Sebastian keens, hums.

“Aren’t they mine, like the rest of you? My sub, my good boy. There’s my darling.”  

Sebastian’s hand moves against the shoulder opposite of where his head rests. He whispers a sweet "Thank you, Sir." 

“Such a polite boy, so pleasing,” Chris adds, tightening his arm around the tiny waist. “Such a good, good, boy. Makes me so happy, so fucking proud.” Sebastian lets out a small moan. 

They fall asleep with the stream of sounds that his sub is making, relaxed against his Sir, cared for, as he should be.

So damned if Chris thinks that’s it, but after a few nights of falling asleep with his sub making some of the sweetest fucking noises into him, he thinks that he’s probably figured out most of what Sebastian is carrying around with him.

 

\----

 

Sebastian’s had three Doms. Had is a generous verb. He’s been with. He’s fucked. He’ll use fuck, because Sebastian does have certain feelings regarding active versus passive verbs. Or he did, before he got sucked into this shithole of unbalanced hormones.

In college he steered clear of Doms. After the shit with his roommate’s friend, after realizing people, you know, might give him second glances now, everything was too new and he was too young and mostly he made out with a bunch of non-Doms and occasionally gave someone a BJ. 

He didn’t feel like he does now. He hates drawing the straight line between home and his current…unsettledness. But he was still mostly nesting at home. His stepdad was thinking of retiring. His mom was still giving piano lessons. Seb went home every single break.

So of the Doms, the first and the third barely bear mentioning. First one was Haya. She was beautiful, and so strong and in charge. They were co-teaching a short-story class/club/who-the-fuck-knows at the arts center in lower Manhattan. Sebastian had just graduated maybe a year prior to meeting her. She invited him back to her place one night, hand around his wrist, and he said yes. She said, just for tonight, yeah, hun? And he said yes. And he’d meant it. And they’d fucked and she’d been beyond generous and he’d kissed her breasts a lot. Got to press his face into the fragrant nest of her curly hair as she laughed and then beckoned him down. Knelt between her legs.

After, his head on her warm stomach, his mouth close to the coffee-warmth of her skin, she asked if she’d been his first. He said no. She asked if she’d been his first Dom. He said yes. She kept petting his hair. They kept co-teaching, and occasionally she’d pet his shoulders a little. It was neat, clean. She smelled like aniseed.

Third was Anthony, definitely years after Haya. Not Mackie, although there’d been a texting debacle that lead to Mackie later getting what he called _deets_ from Sebastian. Sebastian had gone to that club because everyone’d promised the club was private. Discreet. Anthony’s teeth had glimmered in the dark light of the club, along with the whites of his eyes. He’d had a neatly trimmed goatee. Sebastian could hear him speaking to the Domme next to him, call her _mija mija mija_ and then laughingly let her pull out from under his arm to go dance.  

Sebastian had been totally stone-cold sober. He actually needed to go piss from the amount of cranberry juice and seltzer he had been drinking. But he’d liked the way Anthony’s teeth had glimmered, the sound of his laugh, and the slightness of his shoulders. He seemed sweet. He was three inches shorter than Sebastian. 

They had made out in a booth and then gone back to Sebastian’s place, Sebastian insisted. They fucked. Anthony called him _sub_ at the end and Sebastian came to fifteen minutes later with a blanket around his shoulders and a frantic Dom trying to open Seb’s phone to find the emergency contact info (there was none, at that point). Anthony had tried to talk to him, but had been so shaken up himself that Sebastian ended up coming up just to pat the guy’s shoulders and say, “Hey man, I’m okay.” He was lying.  

He asked him to leave. Anthony did, and he kissed him on the cheek on his way out, said “Call someone, okay?” Sebastian liked the kiss on his cheek, the feel of the stubble. He didn’t call anyone. He threw up the next morning right after he woke up.

 

\------

   

The second Dom fucks him up. Sebastian doesn’t like to talk about it. He gets a therapist. They talk on the phone sometimes, until they stop because Sebastian isn’t feeling any better. He thinks the only person who has figured any of it out is Don, because once Don straddled him to help him bench press and Sebastian threw himself off the bench, hit Don’s leg, and then gagged up mostly bile onto the mats. It’d just been the two of them.

Don – well Don was fucking amazing. He turned off the music (J. Cole, it turned out, wasn’t the right soundtrack for this). He sat down on the ground, back to the wall opposite the door, and rolled his water bottle over to Sebastian. They didn’t talk a lot, after. Don wrapped a warm towel around the back of Sebastian’s neck, once Seb had let him come closer. He looked pretty worried. Sebastian had opened his mouth to say “Hey, man, don’t worry” but Don had frowned so severely that Sebastian stopped, and instead tipped his head down.

Don orders him a cab. A week later, he gets one of the fucking bench press machines that Sebastian knows he hates (it’s a unitasker!). Sebastian hugs him before he leaves every time now. After filming, though, well – he stopped going.

 

\-----

 

Chris is stern to him, as he should be, when he tells Sebastian to turn around put his hands on Sir’s chest. Actually, not stern enough considering that Sebastian probably shouldn’t be even allowed to have his hands on Sir’s chest. Should be asked to sleep just a good bit further and to _fucking control himself_.

He’s ashamed at the dampness of his fingers against Sir’s bare chest. But braver, now, than a few days ago when Sir had to coax this kind of thing out of him, so patient and unbearably generous.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” he says now, without prompting.

“Darling,” _how did a sub like him deserve this?_ , “tell me what you’re apologizing for.”

Sebastian forces himself to look Sir in the eye, because Sir also likes that, even though he tells him _Sweetheart, it’s fine if you don’t want to talk. Use your signs, darling, that doesn’t make me the slightest bit mad or disappointed. My sub should find comfort in me, yeah? My sub should be fucking encouraged to put his face in my neck and to use any way he likes to communicate with his Sir, okay?_

“I put my fingers in my mouth,” he says, trying to be brave when, despite a few more days now of Sir holding his hands and finding nice things for him to eat, of putting up with Sebastian’s off-the-charts neediness, a small part of him still thinks that maybe this is what will make Chris realize that he can do waaaaay fucking better than his messed up cast-mate who lied about having a Dom for six or seven years and can’t deal with shit.

“Yes, baby, I saw. Please help me understand what you’re apologizing for.”

Sebastian can’t keep up the eye contact when Sir looks so focused and concerned.

“I…Sir, I shouldn’t be putting my own fingers in my mouth. It’s wrong and taboo and I should be better.”

Sir sighs. Sebastian wonders how he’ll punish him? Maybe like a few days ago when Sebastian skipped a meal and Sir found out and made him kneel by the wall for twenty minutes. But then, even after that punishment Sir had kissed him so much and called him many nice things and Sebastian wonders if maybe Sir will leave him longer for this, not cuddle him like that after? Maybe leave him much much longer, maybe just walk out of the room with Sebastian in that corner and maybe not come back which is _probably not right_ because Sir has talked a lot about how much he likes Sebastian but also _not impossible_ because Sebastian keeps screwing up and has been stuck to him like a limpet for a week.

“I can get out of your way?” Sebastian offers in a rush, hoping for prophylaxis. 

“Sebastian,” says Chris, so sternly it knocks him out of his thoughts. He has twisted his hands into Sir’s shirt and wonders if that’ll add more time to the kneeling. Or he’s been stupid and something like this, much worse than skipping a meal (which he thinks would barely be wrong except for Sir had made meal-eating a _Rule_ ), is going to get a completely different kind of punishment. How shameful. Not just to suck on his own fingers, but to do it in front of his Sir? What kind of sub did that. What kind of -

“Sub. Count down from twenty.”

Sebastian tries to focus his frantic thoughts. Sir wants him to count. This, at least, he can do right.

He mouths the words to keep himself on track, loses himself slightly, and comes back to find his breath a little steadier. To see that Sir has moved a little down the bed so he’s eye to eye with him.

“You calmer now, Seb?” 

He nods.

“Sebastian, who told you sucking on your fingers is bad?”

“Scar…she saw me doing it and it was stupid, I shouldn’t have been, she said I should tell my…my Dom or she would. So I told her I would take care of it, Sir, but I never got punished for it then and I probably should now and-“

“Listen. Hey. Hey,” Chris puts a finger to his mouth, instructive, and Sebastian thinks maybe that _this_ is part of the punishment, for Sir to rest one of his fingers just out of reach.

“Scarlett didn’t mean that sucking fingers was wrong, sweetheart. She was worried. All of us – me especially, we worried about you. You’d show up without a jacket and you’d be so fucking good and she…Scarlett probably thought your Dom wasn’t giving you what you needed, alright, darling? Scarlett wanted to tell your Dom you’d been sucking on your fingers so that he could help you, take care of you. Yeah, Sebastian?”

“What I needed?” Sebastian echoes, feeling Chris’ finger move to the corner of his lips and wanting to shiver out of his skin.

“Yes, sweetheart. What you needed. Wanting…Sebastian, you know right now you can take my finger in your mouth.”

Sebastian knows he’s staring. 

“I’m not the slightest bit mad that you had your fingers in your mouth, darling. Only that you didn’t know that you could have mine, instead. I’m never going to punish you for doing that, but I’d just rather, if I’m there, that you suckle on me. Okay, Sebastian?”

Suckle on…Sir? He knows he has before, once that first night. Suspected he had while asleep then too, but Chris had been kind then about it. Generous. He’s not supposed to – he doesn’t think he’s supposed to need it this often, Sir? And certainly not his own hand, or Sir’s.

He realizes he must’ve said some of that, because Chris is responding.

“Even if you were the only sub out there who liked having his mouth full, kitten, I wouldn’t mind. But you’re not, okay? Fucking – it’s not unusual, it’s not wrong. It’s natural, baby, to want that. And I want to give that to you, okay?”

Sebastian signs _yes please_. A finger is still resting on the corner of his mouth. He turns his head a little so it’s on his lip. Looks at Sir. Sir is nodding, looking solemn but smiling a little. He opens his mouth, and Sir presses the tip of two big fingers into his mouth.

Oh my god. His thoughts scatter. Sir’s fingers, his mouth – he feels good. He feels like he may melt into the bed. Sir’s tugging him closer with his other arm, helping him turn so that his back is to Sir’s front again, and curling around him, big and warm and present.

He keeps an arm wound around Sebastian’s front so that his fingers rest in Sebastian’s mouth. Sir wraps his body around him, and when Sebastian pulls forward a little with a keen so that Sir’s weight falls more on him, laughs. “Yes, sub, yes,” he says, taking Sebastian’s cue and tightening his arm, throwing a leg over Sebastian’s, and pressing his face into Sebastian’s hair.

Sir’s weight. Sir’s fingers in his mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> check me out at bearceptionus on tumblr for slightly more frequent signs of life than I evidence on here.

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my tumblr bearceptionus.tumblr.com for excerpts and general ramblings.


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